New Uk Visa Rules for Jamaicans

Jamaicans travelling to Britain will have to pay £36 for a vistor's visa from midnight tonight.

The scheme has been introduced after the home office found that "significant" numbers of visitors were either being refused entry on arrival or never returned home.

The home office said immigration officers refused entry to so many Jamaican nationals that legitimate visitors from the country faced delays of up to three hours at British airports.

"At our main ports of entry in the run-up to Christmas, Jamaican nationals accounted for around 20% of all passengers refused," the home secretary, David Blunkett, said.

"I have also become concerned about the unacceptably high number who come to the UK as visitors and then abscond - more than 150 a month during the first half of 2002."

He added: "The UK has strong links with Jamaica, which contribute to the richness and diversity of our country. Visas will not stop genuine visitors from Jamaica coming to the UK, but this will mean they will no longer spend hours at immigration control on arrival."

Maxine Roberts, the Jamaican high commissioner in London, said her country could not fight the visa requirement, but did not condone it.

"I am very disappointed, and so is the government and the minister for foreign affairs and foreign trade," she told BBC Radio 5 Live. "I guess there will be long lines at the British high commission in Jamaica."

A spokeswoman for the Home Office said the move had been under consideration for some time, adding that the formal decision to institute a visa programme had been taken "well before Christmas". She insisted it was not linked to crime concerns.

"This is not a kneejerk reaction to anything else that has been going on, and no-one should consider that it is linked to the shootings in Birmingham, for example," she said.

Last year, the deputy high commissioner in Jamaica, Phil Sinkinson, sparked a furore by claiming that one in ten passengers flying from Jamaica to the UK was a drug mule. He estimated that each flight into the UK carried about 30kg of cocaine in plastic bags that had been swallowed by passengers.

Both the Jamaican national carrier, Air Jamaica, and British customs and excise officers disputed the numbers.

The speed with which the home office has implemented the new programme will leave some who are planning to travel scrambling to arrange visas.

Special arrangements will be in place for visitors travelling directly from Jamaica who purchased their tickets on or before January 8 and will arrive in the UK before 11.59pm on January 14.

About 55,600 Jamaican nationals travelled to the UK in 2001, with 6% of them (3,340 passengers) refused entry at immigration control, the home office said.

It added that between January and June 2002, more than 1,000 Jamaican nationals had absconded after being granted temporary admission.

More worrying, Mr Blunkett said, was the number of children who entered the UK and were never heard from again.

Last year, British Airways recorded the arrival of 1,202 unaccompanied minors arriving at Gatwick's north terminal from Kingston, but only 592 returned home during the same period.