No entry to the UK: Government scraps ‘golden visas’ for wealthy foreign investors

The Home Office has confirmed it has scrapped offering so-called golden visas to wealthy foreign investors amid security concerns.

The tier 1 investor visa route will be shut to all new applicants from all nationalities with “immediate effect”, the department said, adding that some cases had “given rise to security concerns, including people acquiring their wealth illegitimately and being associated with wider corruption”.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “I have zero tolerance for abuse of our immigration system. Under my New Plan for Immigration, I want to ensure the British people have confidence in the system, including stopping corrupt elites who threaten our national security and push dirty money around our cities.

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“Closing this route is just the start of our renewed crackdown on fraud and illicit finance. We will be publishing a fraud action plan, while the forthcoming Economic Crime Bill will crackdown on people abusing our financial institutions and better protect the taxpayer.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel has 'zero tolerance' for abuse of the UK's visa system. ( Frank Augstein/AP)Home Secretary Priti Patel has 'zero tolerance' for abuse of the UK's visa system. ( Frank Augstein/AP)
Home Secretary Priti Patel has 'zero tolerance' for abuse of the UK's visa system. ( Frank Augstein/AP)

Those eligible for the visa, launched in 2008, must have at least £2 million in investment funds in active and trading UK registered companies and have a UK bank account.

Successful applicants can work or study in the UK for up to five years and apply to settle in the country after making further investments.

The visas has been under review due to repeated concerns that the system could be exploited because not enough background checks are made on applicants.

The announcement comes amid concerns about Moscow’s influence in the UK as tensions continue about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Labour former minister, Chris Bryant, has previously called for a full review of the scheme as he accused the Government of “giving out golden visas to dodgy Russian oligarchs” and said the system is used as a “backdoor loophole” to funnel dirty money into the UK.

In 2018, a report published by the Foreign Affairs Committee, which at that time included the now Home Secretary Priti Patel as a member, accused ministers of risking national security by “turning a blind eye” to the Russian “dirty money” flowing through the City of London.

Concerns over the practice of issuing golden visas were raised during this inquiry which found that despite the outcry over the Salisbury Novichok nerve agent attack, Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his allies were continuing to use London as a base for their “corrupt assets”.

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Anti-corruption group Global Witness previously accused the UK of turning away those most in need of asylum but rolling out the red carpet for oligarchs.

The change follows a review carried out into all visas granted between 2008 and April 5 2015, the findings of which are yet to be published.

There have been a total of 13,213 such visas issued since the third quarter of 2008, with 564 issued between January and September 2021, according to analysis of Home Office data by the PA news agency.

Since this period in 2008, 2,581 have been issued to Russians, with 55 in the same nine months in 2021.

In those same timeframes, 4,247 were handed out to Chinese nationals, 141 of which were given last year.

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