As Trump tightens visa norms, Starmer plans to drop UK visa fees to tap global talent

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is looking forward to turn America’s loss into a victory for the United Kingdom.

As President Donald Trump is pushing immigrant workers out of the United States and discouraging foreigners’ employment as part of his anti-immigrant agenda, Starmer is working on policies to attract best scientists, academics, and digital experts to the United Kingdom from across the world, according to The Financial Times.

The efforts are being steered by Starmer’s ‘global talent task force’ that is working on a number of proposals, which is chaired by chaired by Varun Chandra, Starmer’s business adviser, and science minister Lord Patrick Vallance, according to a newspaper.

In recent months, as Trump has presided over a crackdown on immigrants and far-right extremism has surged in the United States, scientists and academics have consistently left the United States for other countries like Canada and China. Observers have flagged that Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda has been a self-goal.

But Trump’s self-goal is opportunity for others

One of the options that Starmer’s taskforce is discussing is abolishing visa charges for top-level professionals, according to FT.

“We’re talking about the sort of people who have attended the world’s top five universities or have won prestigious prizes. We’re kicking around the idea of cutting costs to zero,” an official told the newspaper.

Such a decision would be in sharp contrast to Trump’s decision to increase to $100,000 the application fee for an H-1B visa, which technology companies use to bring specialised foreign workers to the United States.

While such a proposal has been in the works for a while, Trump’s decision put “wind in the sails” of those wanting to reform the UK’s high-end visa system to boost growth ahead of the November 26 Budget, a person told the newspaper.

One official described the current visa system as a “bureaucratic nightmare” and said the new process in the works is not about diluting the standards but “it’s about getting the brightest and best into Britain. There is unity across government on this”.

In sharp contrast to zero-free proposals under consideration, the UK’s global talent visa introduced in 2020 currently costs £766 ($1,032) to apply for with partners and children paying the same fee. They usually need to pay an additional health surcharge of £1,035 ($1,396) per person.