Campaign groups call for ‘golden visa’ transparency as data reveals potential abuse of scheme

Campaign groups have ramped up calls for greater transparency into the use of the UK’s now shuttered ‘golden visa’ scheme after fresh data revealed that almost 50 were offered to foreign nationals under 21.

The scheme, which was shuttered in February, was designed to boost investment in the UK by offering wealthy individuals the opportunity to bag residency in return for funding commitments.

But 46 of the visas were offered to individuals under the age of 21 between 2015 and 2021, according to Home Office data acquired via Bloomberg, sparking fears that the system was abused.

Campaign group Transparency International has called on the Home Office to publish a report revealing the inner workings of the scheme.

“The Home Office should publish its long-overdue review with individual cases investigated where there are concerns that the applicants made their money through crime or corruption,” said Duncan Hames, Director of Policy at Transparency International UK.

“Only through some genuine openness can we hope enough people will learn from the mistakes of the past.”

Transparency International said its research had previously shown more than 3,000 individuals and their families from high-corruption risk countries were welcomed to the UK between 2008 and 2015 via the golden visa route with “little to no checks on the source of their wealth”. 

But Hames said “we are still largely in the dark about the true extent of abuse of the scheme”.

Tory MP John Penrose, who serves as the government’s anti-corruption champion, told Bloomberg that “golden visas could have been a loophole for kleptocrats’ children to live gilded lives in London funded by dirty money.”

The scheme was shuttered by home secretary Priti Patel in February amid a clampdown on dirty cash flowing through London.

She said that closing the route was the start of a “renewed crackdown on fraud and illicit finance.” 

“We will be publishing a fraud action plan, while the forthcoming Economic Crime Bill will crackdown on people abusing our financial institutions and better protect the taxpayer,” she said.

London has been grappling with the ‘laundromat’ label in recent months as scrutiny has grown over its role as a haven for dirty cash.