Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with (a) the Russell Group, (b) Universities UK and (c) other sector stakeholders on the potential impact of increasing the cost of (i) the immigration health surcharge and (ii) student visas on the higher education sector.

The Home Office is increasing application fees across a range of immigration and nationality routes, including for people coming to live, work and study in the UK. Increasing application fees, together with the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), helps to fund vital services and allowing wider funding to be prioritised for public sector pay awards.

We will lay regulations and legislation in the Autumn to amend the immigration and nationality fees and the IHS levels, which will set out which immigration routes are impacted and will be accompanied by full economic impact assessments.

We keep fees and IHS levels under review.