The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has recently been taking the government to task for high visa and health costs faced by scientists and researchers coming to the UK:

Our headline message is that the UK’s visa and immigration policy needs to adapt to recognise that we are in a global competition for talent in science and technology… for too many researchers the high up-front visa and health surcharge costs and inflexibilities of the process are acting as a deterrent.

This argument was made in a letter to the Home Office, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and science minister Patrick Vallance at the end of January, following a committee hearing which I wrote about here.

Attracting particular ire was the requirement for researchers to pay the entire Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) upfront, for all years and dependants in one fell swoop. The IHS is currently £1,035 per year per person, with a modest discount for students and under-18s, at £776. So much of what the committee is annoyed about applies to not only to academics and scientists, but also to doctoral students.

This wasn’t the first time this year that the committee had made the argument either – removing the need for all costs to be paid upfront (and generally thinking again about how much is being charged) was a key recommendation in the peers’ report on engineering biology. This government has just responded – and among the warm words for the transformative power of the subject area is a firm no to the idea of changing how IHS works:

The government is not currently in a position to accept this recommendation. Regarding fees for immigration and nationality applications, these are kept under review in line with the principles set out under Section 68 (9) of the Immigration Act 2014 and are generally informed by the principle that those who use and benefit from the immigration system should contribute towards the cost of operating it, reducing the level of UK taxpayer funding that would otherwise be required.

If you wanted to grasp at straws, you might pick on the use of the word “currently” as, just possibly, indicative of the potential for future change. The response continues:

UK visa fees are broadly competitive when compared with the fees charged by comparative countries globally. Visa products are, however, difficult to compare because visa offers, including benefits and entitlements gained and duration of stay, vary significantly between countries.

It is certainly true that costs are hard to compare, when you try to account for both the fees associated with the visa itself along with costs related to health. The Royal Society had a go though, and found the UK far more expensive than almost anywhere else.

There’s more in the way of rationale:

Furthermore, UKRI allows researchers coming to the UK who are working at least 50% of their time on a UKRI grant to claim the cost of their visa, including the Immigration Health Surcharge, from their grant. Many other research funders and R&D organisations operate a similar policy. Additionally, researchers in receipt of Horizon Europe grants are also allowed to claim the cost of their visa from their grant.

The reasoning goes that the extortionate costs are OK because – in some cases – funders will pick up the tab. This may not strike you as the best use of pressured research budgets. Cancer Research UK estimated that it would be spending in the order of £700,000 on immigration costs following last year’s rise.

The government’s response then segues through the usual reference to how reforms to the Migration Advisory Committee may do something hand-wavy about linking up skills and migration, and then concludes:

Upfront payment of the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) ensures migrants make a financial contribution to the cost of NHS treatment available to them from the point of arrival in the UK and for the duration of their immigration permission in the UK. The IHS rates are set based on the Department of Health and Social Care analysis of the average annual cost to the NHS of treating IHS payers. An instalments approach would place an increased administrative burden on the Home Office to seek payment when instalments are due, chasing late or missed payments, and taking enforcement action if necessary.

Enforcement action could involve cancelling immigration permission if an applicant was not up to date with payments, and potentially the individual being unable to continue employment, being liable to detention and removal from the UK, ultimately creating additional cost burdens for employers.

Payment in instalments would also place a burden on the NHS, who would need to ensure patients are up to date with their payments and consider applying NHS charges if the IHS had not been paid and incurring further costs in pursuing unpaid debt. This could create uncertainty for migrants on whether they were eligible for treatment without charge.

Leaving aside the fact that researchers are already paying tax and national insurance – and so are clearly being charged at least twice for healthcare costs which they may not even incur – the rest of the argument is largely unchanged from when the IHS came in, namely that it would be too tricky for the Home Office and HMRC to do anything other than require an enormous upfront investment from those coming to the UK to work.

As far as I’m aware this response to the Lords report is the first time the new government has stood up and defended the IHS arrangements and the cost of visas which it inherited from the Conservatives. It’s a pretty sorry justification.