Theresa May shows visa might, India dissatisfied

British Prime Minister links visa relaxation to return of illegal immigrants

The luncheon humour between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting UK PM Theresa May, where the Indian PM said they had good cooks but the real Cook, a reference to English cricket team captain Alastair Cook, has landed in India, couldn’t take away from the insipid discussions between the two delegations.

The British offered New Delhi nothing on its demands to relax visa and immigration rules for its students and skilled workers, particularly information technology professionals. What further marred the visit was her delegation’s failure to arrange a meeting with senior Tata Group executives. 

May made it clear that any flexibility with visas for Indians will depend on “speed and volume of the return of Indians with no right to remain in the UK.”

 

India and UK have recently successfully tested a pilot programme to send “overtstayers” back to India, the Indian officials said.

The visa concessions that May offered are aimed at benefitting the British economy and left the Indian side dissatisfied. 

The British offered smoother visa access to business travellers and high net worth individuals from India to UK, concessions that are already enjoyed by business travellers from a large number of countries which do not require a visa to visit the UK.

May is in India on a two-day visit to explore the possibilities of strengthening India-UK trade in a post-Brexit scenario, that is when the UK exits the European Union (EU) sometime in 2019, and got an assurance from New Delhi that the two sides will make it their “priority to build closest possible commercial and economic relationship after Brexit.” 

Modi and May agreed to institute a joint working group on trade. Joint Secretary (Europe) Randhir Jaiswal said there was no timeline on the joint working group meetings, and that it would discuss what could be the issues if tomorrow India-UK have a more robust trade relationship.

In the morning, Modi and May interacted with the India-UK CEO Forum and later inaugurated the India-UK Tech Summit. There, Modi called on the UK to “encourage greater mobility and participation of young people in education and research opportunities.” 

New Delhi has bitterly complained to the UK about the number of Indian students enrolling in British universities having fallen by 50 per cent since 2011 because of its policy, initiated by May during her time as home secretary in 2010, that required students to return home instead of a two-year work permit.  At their joint press interaction after their delegation-level talks, the British PM held out the hope of visa reforms in the years to come. Indian officials said that Modi raised the issue of students’ visa during the discussions but “all changes in life are always incremental” and that it was an “ongoing process.”

The British offered Registered Traveller Scheme that offers business travellers from India expedited clearance at the UK border, and another where Indian government can nominate business executives to a “bespoke visa and immigration service.  

The British PM had earlier told journalists travelling with her that UK’s visa system for countries outside the European Union was working well, that the country continued to attract the best and the brightest and that figures showed “we issued more work visas to India than, I think, the US, Australia, Canada and China put together.”

After her meeting with Modi, May claimed that India and UK will sign business deals worth than £1 billion (Rs 83,00 crore) during her visit. She also announced Indian plans to list four “masala bonds” totaling £600 million in London in the next three months. The two sides signed two agreements to increase cooperation in ease of doing business and intellectual property rights. They agreed to expedite pending extradition requests, with New Delhi asking British to hand over 57 wanted people, including Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland helicopter deal and industrialist Vijay Mallya. 

Other key agreements included the two agreeing to invest up to £120 million each in the India-UK sub-fund to finance infrastructure projects in India. May said the UK was investing over £160m across 75 start-up enterprises in India. She also announced £20 million for a Start-Up India Venture Capital Fund. In her speech at the Tech Summit, May said the UK and India didn’t need to wait for Brexit before strengthening trade. However, the Indian side was more cautious and pointed out that the UK cannot discuss a free trade agreement until it officially exits the EU.