Proposed UK visa bond scheme to be scrapped

Aim of the scheme was to reduce the number of people from some "high-risk" countries

The controversial £3,000 "security bond" for some "high-risk" foreign visitors to the UK, including those from India, is to be scrapped, the Home Office has confirmed. The scheme, announced by Home Secretary Theresa May in June, was to come into force this month.

A Home Office spokesman confirmed a Sunday Times report that the policy would be scrapped. Hugo Swire, Britain's minister of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, said recently that "no decision was taken on the bond scheme".     

The decision is thought to have been taken after Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg threatened to block it. India had also expressed its concern to the UK government at the ministerial and official levels.

The aim 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 expired.

Visitors would have paid a £3,000 cash bond before arrival in the UK, that would have been forfeited if they failed make the return trip.

Speaking to BBC earlier this year, Clegg said: "Of course, in a coalition I can stop things," adding: "I am absolutely not interested in a bond which becomes an indiscriminate way of clobbering people who want to come to this country."      

The bond idea was also floated several times by the previous Labour government but never implemented. But that did not stop Labour's shadow immigration minister, David Hanson, launching an attack on the U-turn, accusing Home Secretary May of being "all over the place and presiding over an immigration policy in chaos".