British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has vowed to block the implementation of the United Kingdom visa bond policy.
The new visa policy planned by the British Government that was expected to see first time visitors to the United Kingdom including Nigerian who have been labeled “high risk” to make deposit of £3,000 (equivalent to about N700,000) in bond prior to the issuance of visa to them.
The pilot scheme of the policy will to start in November in six countries, including Nigeria where the policy has been contested by the government .
Clegg said yesterday he would endeavour to block any attempt to make foreign visitors routinely pay a security deposit to come to the U.K.
Government officials as well as the business people in other affected countries have condemned the proposal, and the British government has not said how many visa applicants will have to pay the bond.
It was reported that Clegg said his Liberal Democrat party and its Conservative coalition partners had “differences of emphasis” on the plan, and details were still being discussed in government.
“I am absolutely not interested in a bond which becomes an indiscriminate way of clobbering people who want to come to this country,” Clegg told the BBC. He said the bonds “are certainly not going to go ahead” on that basis.
He added that he could use his position to control the situation as he said “of course in a coalition I can stop things”.
Recently , the unemployment rate and austerity measures brought on by the economic crisis has made immigration a sensitive political issue in Britain, as the Prime Minister David Cameron had pledged to “cut net immigration from 252,000 a year in 2010 to below 100,000 a year by 2015”.
However, Clegg had defended his party’s participation in the coalition government, arguing that it made the “government fairer and more liberal”.