Britain will not seek a visa deal with India, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, emphasising that his focus is on strengthening economic relations with the country after this year’s trade deal.
Starmer begins a two-day trip to India on Wednesday, bringing a trade mission of businesses to promote the trade deal, which was agreed in May, signed in July, and is due to come into effect next year.
Starmer said that visas had blocked previous efforts to seal a trade deal, and that, having reached an agreement which had no visa implications, he didn’t wish to revisit the issue when he meets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for talks on Thursday.
“That isn’t part of the plans,” he told reporters en route to India when asked about visas, adding the visit was “to take advantage of the free trade agreement that we’ve already struck”.
“Businesses are taking advantage of that. But the issue is not about visas.”
Starmer is trying to take a more restrictive stance on immigration amid high public concern about the issue, as his Labour Party trails the populist Reform UK party in polls.
He said visas would not be on the table in order to attract tech sector professionals from India, after US President Donald Trump hiked fees on H-1B visas, though he said more broadly he wanted to have “top talent” in Britain.
Asked if he would stop issuing visas to arrivals from countries that won’t take back foreign criminals or people wanted to deport, Starmer said it was a “non-issue” with India as there is a returns agreement, but it was something he would look at more broadly.
“We are looking at whether there should be a link between visas and returns agreements,” he said.
