All adult visitors to the UK should be charged £20 each before being allowed to enter the country, according to a Wycombe councillor.

The Risboroughs cllr Gary Hall launched a petition after a recent visit to Mexico, where he said he and his five friends paid £360 in tourist tax, adding this got him thinking about levying a similar charge in the UK, mandatory on entry, in order to “ultimately keep our country safe”.

He said: “I travel quite a lot and on a recent trip to Mexico six of us paid £60 each in tourist tax, which got me thinking.

“I was discussing it with friends and put it up on my Facebook, and the response was quite positive. So I thought I would start the petition.”

The petition claims if the UK applied a charge to all adult visitors, the country would raise “hundreds of millions of pounds”, which could be used to “enhance and strengthen our border, customs, immigration, security and intelligence services”.

It says: “Mexico charge a flat £60 tourist tax, the USA charge £14 for an ESTA to gain admittance, [and] many other states now charge visitors to either enter or leave their country.

“The UK Border, Immigration and Customs agencies face challenging workloads on tight budgets.

“Likewise our Security and Intelligence services could be better funded to keep our country more secure and safer.”

The charge would only be for adult visitors. Under-18s would go free.

Cllr Hall added: “Going by the feedback I’ve had, the majority of people agree.

“All the services mentioned [in the petition] are underfunded. So I thought it would be a good idea to levy a charge on visitors to the UK and spend it on our own infrastructure – not just squandered, but spent on something specific.

“I don’t think a small sum of £20 will put people off from visiting the UK.

“I would say we are more of a tourist spot than Mexico, our visitor numbers are up in the millions.”

For more information, go to https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/183204.