The Times notes that many Indian girls are forcibly married by their families to UK residents of Indian origin, and the government's proposed measure is primarily aimed at stopping such practice. 'This measure will result in three thousand fewer people from this region coming to Britain each year,' the newspaper writes. In addition, candidates for a marriage visa from non-EU countries must be prepared to be required to take an English language exam.
Among other important changes that foreigners need to prepare for is the reduction of the standard tourist visa validity from six to three months. This measure is proposed because, as a Home Office study showed, only 2% of those who received a six-month visa intend to stay in the country longer than three months. At the same time, the government plans to introduce special inexpensive visas for attending events of the 2012 Olympic Games, as well as other major international cultural and sporting events.
Sanctions will be tightened against those who have not left the country before their visa expires. Persons with expired documents face freezing of bank accounts, and relatives or friends with whom they were staying face a ban on inviting anyone from abroad in the future. Similar measures will apply to those who have not left the country before the end of their student and business visas, and to the institutions that invited them.
All those entering the UK will be required to have medical insurance. Providing false information when applying for a visa may result in all subsequent applications being automatically rejected.
In 2008, it is also planned to introduce universal issuance of British visas with biometric data. At British consular offices around the world, visa applicants will have their fingerprints taken and their iris photographed. Currently, as a pilot measure, these rules are already in effect in a number of countries, particularly Pakistan.
Passenger screening will be strengthened at airports and other points of entry into the country: sea and rail. The electronic control system at the entry (reading people's biometric data) will be developed. Also, document checks on departure from the UK, abolished in the 1990s, will be reinstated.
The new security measures are designed to help the government cope with the ever-growing number of immigrants, said Immigration Minister Liam Byrne. According to Byrne, in the next seven years, the number of people entering and leaving the United Kingdom will increase by 50% compared to the current 12 million per year. 'I want to be sure that when ministers decide how serious the barriers should be, they have a clear idea of when migration is necessary for the British economy and when it is not,' the minister stressed.
Maria TABAK.
RIA Novosti