Proposed New Fees from 1 April 2007

[JAJ]

This is not the end of the story, when you apply for naturalisation you'll have to as Gordon Brown has already announced:

1. Do forced voluntary community work
2. Pay for the new set of citizenship exams and tuition courses
3. Pay for a provisional citizenship application
4. Pay for the final citizenship application

It would help a little to stick to the facts.

[JAJ]

[On the other hand, many non-citizens can vote in general elections - all Commonwealth citizens who are living in the UK should be on the electoral roll - and they ought to exercise their right to vote, in my view. I don't know what proportion of the people living in the UK who are subject to immigration control are Commonwealth citizens, but it can't be an insignificant proportion.

Voting rights for Commonwealth citizens may be the next thing to go.

[JAJ]

That is totally unjustified and uncalled for...the naturalisation fees are disgusting, totally. That's at least half a month's or one whole month's wage for most people!!!

In fact I would suggest the naturalisation fees are substantially less than a "month's wage" for most skilled migrants (otherwise something is seriously not right).

Of more concern is the impact of higher naturalisation and registration fees on those in the community with lower incomes. Including many people who have lived in Britain a very long time. I did think this was supposed to be a Labour government.

These changes in part reflect a backlash against the appalling mismangement of the immigration system by Labour in their first five years of office, where immigration levels were allowed to increase to levels which ultimately are not sustainable for a country the size of the United Kingdom. At the time ministers boasted of "no real limit" to inward migration numbers. And Labour were re-elected twice, so the country in general can't claim not to have had a chance to control this before now.

[Christophe]

Voting rights for Commonwealth citizens may be the next thing to go.

Absolutely. Most other Commonwealth countries no longer give voting rights to non-citizen Commonwealth residents. But while they exist people who have them ought to use them.

[meggles]

I have now spotted the fees for in-person applications at a PEO, as from 01.04.07 :-

ILR £950
FLR Work Permit £550
FLR (student) £500
FLR (other) £595

And by the way HSMP increases from £315 to £400, and HSMP Leave to Remain (postal) goes from £335 to £350.

not to mention that when applying for ILR... you'll have to take the life in the UK test first... how much does that cost?

[indian_in_uk]

Thats £34 for test + £9.99 for the book

£34 is per person fee ofcourse

[meggles]

from these fees... it's clear that the gov't doesn't want people staying here long term... a 125% increase in ILR fees???

[olisun]

from these fees... it's clear that the gov't doesn't want people staying here long term... a 125% increase in ILR fees???

If you had to choose between getting ILR or saving the 125% increase in fees, which one will you choose?

[jbinuk]

[quote="olisun"][quote="meggles"]from these fees... it's clear that the gov't doesn't want people staying here long term... a 125% increase in ILR fees???[/quote]

If you had to choose between getting ILR or saving the 125% increase in fees, which one did you choose? [/quote]


Do we really have a choice?????

[tdpff3]

In fact I would suggest the naturalisation fees are substantially less than a "month's wage" for most skilled migrants (otherwise something is seriously not right).

A post-dcotoral research fellow after tax gets around £1500 per month. Imagine someone with family and having to apply with new few of £575 (excluding NCS fee, Life in UK test fee, passport fee, and so many little hidden costs). That adds up to a substantial amount.

By the way, the IND new proposed fee document mentions the current naturalisation fee to £200. Is it not £268?

[John]

By the way, the IND new proposed fee document mentions the current naturalisation fee to £200. Is it not £268?

Well it is £268, including £68 for the Citizenship Ceremony. And should the application for Naturalisation be refused for any reason, the £68 does actually get refunded.

So I suspect that on top of the new £575 fee we probably still need to add a further £68 (or whatever) to cover the compulsory attendance at a Citizenship Ceremony.

[rg1]

Is there anyone who will not pay £1000 to get ILR?

If people really stop applying for HSMP/ILR/FLR, the HO will become bankrupt.

The HO knows very well that people will still apply. So, they can raise the fee to raise their revenue.

[Administrator]

.

I notice at the Home Office announcement page for this :

http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutu ... onresponse

the *.pdf document of the schedule of fees PROPOSED ( ) has been changed :

http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/6353/6 ... es2007.pdf

The http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/6353/6 ... es2007.pdf link from the initial post in this thread still downloads, but Acrobat Reader can't open it anymore.

Hmmm ... well, last night it downloaded & opened under Acrobat Reader 7.0.9 on WinXP ... I just tried it with Reader 7.0.7 on Win2000.

I note that the new link I provided (fees2007.pdf) has a document that is quite different from the one I looked at yesterday (newfees2007.pdf).

The so-called 'explanation' in the announcement is, ummm, well incoherent and illegical are the kindest adjectives that come to mind ...

The Admin

[John]

There's more ... as detailed on this webpage. I emphasise that the charges listed there are those to be paid to British Missions abroad .... they are not application fees payable in the UK.

[Administrator]

.

We converted the tables of fee changes for in-country from both *.pdf documents provided by the Home Office in *.html format here :

UK Home Office publishes new immigration schedule of fees
http://www.workpermit.com/news/2007_03_ ... _rates.htm

The Admin

[Watchful]

Unfortunately skilled and legal immigrants are the easiest target to do all politically incorrect things to fool british public that this government is tough on immigration(particularly LEGAL IMMIGRANTS since those are the ones who live by the rules).

We all know now, how unfairly these fees have been increased to rip us off our hard earned money. What we need to do is to plan how we can raise effective voice against it and bring these back to reasonable levels(if there is any chance of that).

I suppose we all should raise voice against these unfair and unacceptable new fees, should write to the MPs to begin with and contact media.

By the way, dont expect any favours from Tories they were the ones who introduced Council Tax, Labour came to power they never abolished it since they saw it as a good source for revenue.

Looking at the last couple of years, message coming from HO is: You are not supposed to make Britain your permanent home but we dont mind you helping to keep alive the dying welfare system by paying huge taxes and inappropriate fees.

[PASS]

we have been paying taxes as a british citizen and not eligible for benefits for 5 years!!

Well..first of all, I came here not thinking about benefits..in fact, I had no idea about the benefits before I came here in UK. NHS??? right..as if you can get a quality service. Let me tell you what we are going through at the moment, my wife have been experiencing headaches for more than a year now and we are now very much worried about her condition and NHS is the least worried. She have been to different GPs already and they keep on saying it's just minor migrane!! or it is not something to worry about.. My wife is a nurse and I believe her that she knows what she is feeling and trying to get a referral for an MRI. The last visit to the GP, he gave her some medicine to relieve the pain..my wife was expecting the GP to at least check her blood first to know if his medication will not affect her because the medicine that he gave are not the usuall medicine that the GPs prescribe. And yet again, she wasn't referred for an MRI..and if in case she gets a referral, you have to wait for several months!!!

So now we decided that my wife to just go home to our country to seek an immediate proper diagnosis before it will be too late.

So what NHS benefits are you talking about??

I agree with you.

Immigrants get Excellent NHS facilities as long as they are healthy and don't fall sick.

If you spend few nights at NHS hospital, you will leave this country soon after, that's what the service you get. This is based on few of my friend's experience.

[British]

As a side note (i am offering an idea to the UK govt. actually ) i remember having read in one of their ID card proposal documents that it will cost the govt. about £ 8 billion to implement ID card system.

I have an idea for them: Since the ID card system will be compulsory for immigrants from next year onwards, why not charge every immigrant a price of about £ 4000 per ID card application and cover the entire cost in one go, so actually they can issue the British citizens (later on), ID cards for FREE! and claim that they have somehow absorbed all costs and have done a free service to British citizens!

I think the legal immigrants can pay this (well, actually since it will be compulsory, they WILL have to pay it!)

After all, like they politely claim during every immigration service price increase proposal, this ID card system is to benefit immigrants to prove their legal status in the country... so why not they pick up this cost as well.

If on an average, there are about 2 million legal immigrants, a charge of about £4000 per ID card application will get them £8 billion immediately!!!!! (assuming my math is correct)

Yahooooooooo! Problem solved!

I think they should think about this ASAP and get this proposal implemented as well from 1st April

[sywahu]

It looks like this country is finally catching up with whats been happening in the middle east for many years i.e all visa categories carry a very heavy fee tag. £1300 to get a work visa stamp in UAE for instance (ink one ) and this was about 8 years ago!

I was quite surprized many years ago when I came here that almost all visa endorsements etc were completely free. I guess that has finally come to a painful end.

I dread even trying to think about getting my wife's ILR transferred onto a new passport! Glad that I don't need it at the moment but I wouldn't be surprized if HO decides to change the law and "force transfers".

[British]

and "force transfers".

... for a tiny fee of £12000 only!

[John]

British, sorry I see flaws in your "argument" You have neglected to factor in that in order to avoid the £4000 each cost of an ID card people could simply become British! The cost of Citizenship applications is far too low!

Seriously, I do hope that John Reid or Gordon Brown are not reading this!

[joesoap101]

wow what a great way to ostracize immigrants in a country which only recently realised that multiculturalism is a failure and that they made a balls of integration. Increasing the fees will go a long way in making the problem worse if the sentiment in this forum is anything to go by.

Removing voting rights from commonwealth citizens might upset the queen seeing the the commonwealth was so dear to the heart of the queen mother.

[ilm]

Having read the 'Response to the Consultation' does anyone else feel that it is flawed? The questions seem bias towards business, students and tourists and those engaged in the consultation process seem to represent tourists, students or the business sectors? It would appear just one respondant was represented in the category of sponsor!

Read the answers to the questions and it would appear the consesus was for costs to be competative and attractive. The aim was to produce a self financing immigration system so it is no surprise that settlement, not work or student based applications, have had to be increased by a large amount to subsidise other applications. Although respondants did not agree that citizenship should be priced according to value it clearly has been increased. Interesting to know what value they would have put on a British passport had the response been more favorable?

As a British person married to a non EU spouse a feel very let down and insulted by the consultation. My wife is obviously not classed as being an asset to the UK with students, work permits and HSMP ILR visa being less than half the cost of a spouse ILR visa. The word spouse does not even appear in the consultation document?

Having been an assylum seeker we have managed to get her stay legalised after 7 years of living together; we married and returned to her country for a spouse visa exactly as was required. Having done that we thought she was at least the equal of any other immigrant in the UK but appears that is not the case.

As a point of interest has anyone else wondered at the logic behind the wording of Q2. 'Should prices reflect a range of factors, or only those that are of value to the migrant?' Read the Qualitive summary on page 19 and see if it makes any sense to you?

[Docterror]

British, that was hilarious! Unfortunately, seeing the way the things are headed I wonder whether your idea will hailed as something that would come from Jon Stewart or from Nostrodamus!

You have neglected to factor in that in order to avoid the £4000 each cost of an ID card people could simply become British!

But John, isnt the majority of immigrants caught up in these situations the ones not yet eligible to obtain British Citizenship in the first place?

[quixote44]

I'm in the same boat as "ilm" above, with a non European spouse. The costs for FLR and ILR are now punitive ! I don't think a monopoly supplier would be able to get away with costs / increases like this in any other field.

I know we could go to another country so really the UK isn't a "monopoly supplier". But I'm British and I'd like my children to be British too, and not of small significance is the fact that my work is here, and wouldn't be easy to transfer to another country.

The government / HO are abusing there position, certainly in respect of spouses of British nationals !

I have also read, in a couple of places now including the FT, that non Europeans will also need ID cards from 2008. If that is true that will really make my wife feel welcome ! (1930s Germany all over again ?).

They talk about the value that immigrants will receive .... well coming here my Brazilian wife has had to sacrifice quite a lot. The one that shocks me most is that in Brazil they do cervical smears every year from the start of sexual activity. In the UK it's every 3 years from the age of 25. Then of course ... National health dentists here almost don't exist and the treatment they can provide is only very very basic. There are many examples of inferior public services here compared to Brazil. I know there are great things about the UK but there are swings and roundabouts ... the rest of the world outside Europe is not all in the stone age !

I'm really angry about these charges and the apparent attitude of the government / HO .... and yet I have to pay up and shut up as I have no choice.

Apologies for the rant ....