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UK prepares for visa crackdown

Following a global review by the UK Government, eleven countries could face tough new visa regimes.

The Visa Waiver Test carried out by United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) reviewed all non-European countries against a set of strict criteria to determine the level of risk they pose to the UK in terms of illegal immigration, crime and security, to help decide where the new regime may be required.

The results of the test showed a strong case for introducing visa regimes for 11 countries.

- Bolivia
- Botswana
- Brazil
- Lesotho
- Malaysia
- Mauritius
- Namibia
- South Africa
- Swaziland
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Venezuela.

These countries have a combined population of over 300 million - nearly five per cent of the world's population. This means that Britain's visa net could be widened to cover around 80 per cent of the world's population.

The Government will introduce visa requirements for short-term visitors from these countries unless they significantly reduce the risk they pose to the UK by the end of the year.

This means visitors from these countries would need to apply for a six-month visa, and provide their fingerprints, before travelling to the UK.

At present, everyone applying for a UK visa now has their fingerprints checked before their identity is fixed. So far more than two million sets of fingerprints have been collected with checks flagging up almost 3,000 attempted identity swaps.

Widening the net

Border and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne explained the Government's position: "Our tougher checks abroad are working even better than expected. We've now checked two million fingerprints of foreign nationals applying for visas and stopped 3,000 people trying to hide their real identity.

"Now we need to decide how to widen the visa net. Three quarters of the world's population need to pass a visa check to come to Britain. We cannot and will not shy away from going wider and will wherever we think there's a risk to the UK."

"The Government will now work with these countries over the next six months to reduce the risk they pose. If they are able to show evidence of change there will be no need to introduce a visa regime. No final decisions will be made until early 2009".

The criteria for the test included:

- Looking at passport security and integrity.

- The degree of co-operation over deportation or removal of a country's nationals from the UK

- Levels of illegal working in the UK and other immigration abuse.

- Levels of crime and terrorism risk posed to the UK

- The extent to which a country's authorities were addressing these threats.

This week the chief executive of Ukinbound, an umbrella group for companies in the tourism sector, slammed the government's decision.

He said: "We are deeply concerned that these measures, just like the chaotic introduction of biometric visas, are an ill conceived overreaction by United Kingdom Border Agency, prompted by the desire of the Home Office to be seen to be tough on illegal immigration irrespective of the damage to trading links with these countries of which tourism is just one of many".