Home Office confirms that proposed visa bond scheme for "high risk" overseas visitors has been scrapped

BBC News reported on November 3rd that the Home Office confirmed that a proposed £3,000 visa bond for some "high risk" overseas visitors to the UK is to be abandoned.

You can read our June story on the proposed scheme here, including a June press release by the Home Office stating that a pilot was due to start this month.

Under the scheme, those coming to Britain on six-month visitor visas from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Ghana faced being charged a £3,000 "bond" on arrival.

The Guardian quoted a Home Office spokesman as saying: "The government has been considering whether we pilot a bond scheme that would deter people from overstaying the visa. We have decided not to proceed."

According to BBC News, the scheme is thought to have been scrapped after Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg threatened to block it.

Lib Dem sources told the BBC: "The Home Office version of the policy was not acceptable to the Liberal Democrats and was not support by other government departments. They have seen the writing on the wall and binned it off. We have been clear from the start that the version was just not acceptable to us."

However, the Guardian reported that Conservative sources said the scheme was abandoned because the new immigration bill would help to reduce the number of foreigners entering the UK in other ways.