Plans for a £3,000
"security bond" for
some "high risk"
overseas visitors to
the UK are to be
abandoned, the Home
Office has confirmed.
The visa bond scheme was
announced by Home
Secretary Theresa May in
June and was set to be
introduced this month.
A Home Office spokesman confirmed a Sunday Times report that
the policy would be scrapped.
The decision is thought to have been taken after deputy prime
minister Nick Clegg threatened to block it.
The aim of the scheme was to reduce the number of people from
some "high risk" countries - including India, Pakistan, and Nigeria -
staying in the UK once their short-term visas had expired.
Visitors would have paid a £3,000 cash bond before arrival in the UK
- forfeited if they failed make the return trip.
'Outrage'
The idea was first suggested by Mr Clegg in March.
But Business Secretary Vince Cable later claimed the deputy prime
minister's plan, which had suggested a bond of £1,000, had been
deliberately misinterpreted by some of their Conservative cabinet
colleagues.
"What Nick Clegg said was if somebody in the Indian sub-continent, for
example, was turned down for a visa, they could, as an alternative,
come up with a bond... But the way some of our colleagues
interpreted was in a much more negative way, of saying that
everybody who comes here should pay this very large bond," Mr Cable
said in September.
Mr Cable also criticised the level at which the bond was set and said
that it had caused "outrage" in India.
He said both he and Nick Clegg would be arguing in government for a
"much more sensible and flexible" approach to the policy.
The idea was also floated several times by the previous Labour
government but never implemented.
The announcement comes two weeks after a roll out of Home
Office vans with posters warning illegal immigrants to "go home or
face arrest" was cancelled.
Mrs May told MPs she accepted they had "not been a good idea" and
were too much of a "blunt instrument".
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24793092