UK Announces New Reciprocal Visa Arrangement With India Amid Reservations in Sunak’s Cabinet

The news comes after a pull-aside involving British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the margins of the G-20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali on Tuesday. On Wednesday, however, the two held a more detailed bilateral meeting face to face, as per Indian officials.

Downing Street has announced a new reciprocal visa arrangement with India, under which 3,000 degree-educated Indian nationals aged 18-30 will be able to work in the United Kingdom for two years before returning home.

The arrangement, part of the UK-India Migration and Mobility Partnership signed last May, will kick in next year, as per an official statement.

The statement also noted that India is the first country to benefit from such a scheme.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the UK has “more links with India than with any other country in the Indo-Pacific region,” underlining that almost a quarter of international students came from India and Indian investments supported 95,000 jobs across UK.

However, the new visa arrangement comes amid reservations in Sunak’s cabinet against expanding the migration partnership with India.

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who returned to the position under Sunak after resigning from the position under ex-PM Liz Truss, has been critical of a growing India-UK mobility partnership. In particular, the ethnically Indian Home Secretary claimed last month that “the largest group of people who overstay” their visas in the UK are Indian migrants.

“I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I don’t think that’s what people voted for with Brexit,” Braverman stated in a media interview.

‘Won’t Compromise Quality for Speed’ — Sunak

After the two countries missed a late October deadline for concluding the post-Brexit trade pact, Sunak said that negotiations on a free trade deal with India were still ongoing.

At the same time, he said London “won’t compromise quality for speed” in finalizing the trade agreement with India, which overtook the UK to become the world’s fifth-biggest economy in September.

The negotiations for the pact kicked off last year under ex-PM Boris Johnson, but have been mired in differences amid the UK's reluctance to lower tariffs on Indian manufactured goods and allow a greater access to Indian workers under the mobility partnership.

Indian Commerce Ministry officials said on Tuesday that 14 of the 26 chapters of the trade deal have been finalized and a deal could be expected to finalize by March next year.

The trade deal is expected to double the India-UK annual bilateral trade to over $60 billion by 2030.