£10 charge for
visitors
to UK

21 November 2014

Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has announced that Labour plans to introduce a £10 charge which would be payable at UK borders to visitors from over 55 countries worldwide.

According to the proposals, the charge is to pay for 1,000 extra border guards which they plan to put in place at a cost of £45 million. The Labour Party claims that the additional staff will play an essential role in the enforcement of the UK’s immigration rules at the borders, where basic checks are not being carried out.

‘Under (Home Secretary) Theresa May, basic checks are just not being done and this is undermining confidence in the whole system’ – Yvette Cooper.

Should the proposals come to pass, nationals from countries which currently enjoy a visa waiver system of fast-track permission to enter the UK will be hit with a charge of £10 per visit. This is a similar sum to that charged by the USA for its equivalent service. The charge is expected to affect around 5.5 million travellers to the UK each year, with the highest number of affected visitors coming from the USA, followed closely by those from Australia and Canada.

Experts do not anticipate that the proposed fee would reduce the numbers of visitors to the UK and Labour aides have highlighted the rise in the cost of visas from £68 to £83 since 2010 to back this claim, stating that the increases in these costs have not deterred high numbers of applicants from countries who do not benefit from waiver arrangements.

However, The Guardian has suggested the proposed charge is an attempt by Labour to ‘beef up’ its pitch to voters ahead of next year’s election and Theresa May has revealed Labour’s plan to be threadbare in its promise of supporting 1,000 new border staff. In her view, the proposed charge would only apply to around 230,000 travellers and therefore could only pay for 59 border staff. She has attacked its funding model as being ‘especially dishonest’, as it includes cuts to the Home Office budget.

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