I had originally posted the new fees in another post, but that went slightly off topic ! I though that some people might be interested to see what the increases actually are. There are many other increases in addition to those below but they relate mostly to the Points based system -

The proposed increases are as below. The new fee is in bold type, so the cost of a visit visa, 6 month validity, is increased from 68 GBP to 70 GBP. Settlement visa fee is increased by more than 100 GBP. In addition to which a prospective spouse for settlement must pay for the soon- to-be- introduced English test ( probably around 100 GBP ). It looks like the cost of taking your spouse to the UK to live will increase by around 200 GBP by the end of the year. The Unit Cost is what the UKBA estimates the cost of processing a visa application to be. : -

Visit visa - short

Unit cost £140

Current cost £68

Proposed cost £70

Visit visa - long 2 year

Unit cost £140

Current cost £230

Proposed cost £245

Visit visa - long 5 year

Unit cost £141

Current cost £420

Proposed cost £450

Settlement

Unit cost £249

Current cost £644

Proposed cost £750

Settlement - Dependant Relative

Unit cost £272

Current cost £1,680

Proposed cost £1,680

Makes for an interseting comparison to Thai visa fees. I'll mention this next time someone complains about the cost of a one year extension.

I've closed the other topic VP refers to; please keep this one on topic.