UK to scrap Tier 1 golden visa scheme 

UPDATE: Tier 1 Investor Visa closed with immediate effect as top lawyers predict next steps. UK home secretary Priti Patel, said on 17 February at 3.17pm that she had closed down the Tier 1 Investor visa system "over security concerns"

Fast-track residency via the so-called ‘golden visa' scheme in the UK is expected to be scrapped by its government amid pressure over UK links to Russia.

The BBC cited a government source who confirmed reports of an announcement next week on Tier 1 investor visas, which offer residency to those spending at least £2m.

For early reaction this move from senior lawyers, click here. 

The scheme was introduced in 2008 to encourage wealthy people from outside the EU to invest in the UK.

The anticipated move comes against the backdrop of Russia's ominous military presence along Ukraine's border with 100,000 troops. 

The Tier 1 (investor) visa, so-called ‘golden visa', offers residency to those investing £2m or more in the UK, and allows their families to join them.

Holders of these visas can then apply for permanent residency in the UK, at a speed depending on how much they invest.

A £2m investment allows an application within five years, shortened to three years with £5m or two years if £10m is invested.

Currently, you can come to the UK with a Tier 1 (Investor) visa for a maximum of three years and four months, and you can apply to extend this visa for another two years.

Specifically, the rules allow you to:

• work or study
• apply to settle after 2 years if you invest £10m
• apply to settle after 3 years if you invest £5m
• apply to settle after 5 years if you invest £2m

Armed forces minister James Heappey suggested on BBC Radio 4's Today programme (17 February) that the change was being made in part because of the Kremlin's build-up of troops near Ukraine.

He said: "Changes were made to that in 2015 and 2019 to make sure that the checks were ever more stringent. But absolutely, as we enter into what could be a generation or longer of quite acute competition with Russia, all of the things that have become normal in Anglo-Russian relations over the last 30 years will be up for review. And that is, I think, what the home secretary and her team are looking at at the moment."

House of Commons foreign affairs select committee chair, Tom Tugendhat, said it was "great news" that the golden visa system would be scrapped, tweeting that it was "so often used to get round proper checks".

In 2020, Parliament's intelligence and security committee argued for a "more robust" approach to approving Tier 1 visas as part of a report on Russian influence in the UK.

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".

The Home Office has issued 14,516 investor visas to Russian citizens since the scheme opened in 2008.