Foreign footballers and international businessmen are to be offered a £15,000 personalised visa renewal service to avoid them having to queue, as part of an increase in immigration fees announced yesterday.
Officials from the UK Border Agency will offer to visit highly skilled migrants at their office or home to sort out their immigration documents.
During the visit they will take the new “biometric” photograph and fingerprints and then provide an on-the-spot decision on whether the visa will be renewed.
The Home Office admitted that the £15,000 price is in excess of the £1,982 cost of providing the “mobile biometric enrolment and case-working” service.
Fifty appointments will be made available in the first 12 months from this April as part of a pilot scheme to test the revenue-raising potential.
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One official said: “The scheme is aimed at people like international football stars who don’t want to get in the Jaguars and drive down to offices in Croydon to get their visa renewed.”
Ministers are also almost doubling the fees for migrants who apply to bring elderly parents from abroad to live with them to more than £1,900 and are to introduce a separate 10 per cent charge for every child.
Phil Woolas, Immigration Minister, defended the big increases in fees to be introduced in April, saying it was fair that those who benefit from the immigration system should help fund it.
The basic cost of a visa for migrants applying to settle in Britain will rise from £585 to £644. For those already in Britain, the cost of applying for indefinite leave to remain will rise from £820 to £840, and for applying to become a British citizen will increase from £640 to £655.
Migrants who wish to bring dependent elderly relatives into Britain face sharp increases in fees for settlement visas.
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From April, visa fees for dependent relatives who settle here will increase from £585 to £1,680. Family members who visit and then stay because they cannot support themselves will see fees more than double, also to £1,680.
It is thought that about 5,000 such relatives come through both strands every year.
A 10 per cent charge on all immigration and nationality fees is also to be introduced for each child of a migrant who is already in Britain who wants to extend their family’s stay.