UK Entry Visas — House of Commons, 2018-11-19
Topic: Immigration
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): There we go, and that goes back to the points made by our hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) What all the stakeholders have told these groups and what all the evidence shows is that the visa processing system also needs to be fit for purpose. The level of detail being requested, sometimes from very senior or very high-profile individuals, as we have heard, has been described as humiliating. In the case of applicants from developing countries, sometimes the information requested is simply impossible to provide. Priests and pupils in remote villages in northern Malawi or elsewhere in Africa may not have bank accounts or birth certificates and almost certainly do not have credit cards or online access to pay the visa processing fees, and neither would they have the means or resources to travel hundreds of miles to a processing centre, sometimes in another country and often on multiple occasions Of course, all this takes place in the context of Brexit. We are told that many leave voters voted leave because they wanted freedom of movement to come to an end, but freedom of movement simply cannot come to an end without having any impact on our economy or society. We can all agree that there are different types of movement of people—for labour, for holiday, for family, and for the longer term or the short term. My concern in this debate is largely around very short-term movement, when people enter the country for specific reasons, such as a festival or an academic conference, for a short period of time before returning. Many of the examples, as we have heard, are in any event about visitors from non-EU countries, so they will not be affected by any Brexit withdrawal agreement I also accept that those of us who supported, and still support, remaining in the European Union could and should have done a better job of championing the benefits of freedom of movement and immigration, because after all, many people from the UK benefit significantly from ease of travel to the EU and other destinations around the world. The risk of Brexit and the hostile environment more generally is that perhaps the restrictions that the UK Government place on visitors will be increasingly reciprocated elsewhere. Indeed, many UK residents, not least artists and musicians, are already experiencing increasing difficulty applying for entry visas to the United States. The consequences may be even more far-reaching and unintended. Last year, Corina Cojocaru, Moldova’s economic counsellor to the World Trade Organisation, and her team were denied entry to the UK, even though they wanted to come to discuss their country’s future relationship with Britain after it leaves the European Union. This year, Moldova was one of several countries to question openly the UK’s re-entry to the World Trade Organisation’s Government procurement agreement. Maybe that was just a coincidence, but the examples mount up—case after case of how to lose friends and alienate people, but that seems to be the overall direction of Government policy in a whole range of Departments I will not be surprised if the Minister gets up shortly and tells us that all this is imaginary, that statistics show upwards of 80% of visas are granted in a timely and orderly manner, that feedback on experiences in processing centres is positive, and that all these cases and examples are just isolated and can be easily resolved, but I am not sure that that is really the case. Even if the approval rate is accurate, how many visas are not being applied for in the first place, or how many fall at the first hurdle? If these examples are just rare, isolated, high-profile cases, why are there so many, why are they so frequent, and why should they require high-level intervention in the media or here on the Floor of the House to resolve them? How many denials or delays do not have the luxury of media or political contacts that can cut through the red tape The reality is that the whole immigration system needs root and branch reform, and that includes visitor entry visas. The Minister knows full well that if she does not want it to change, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament would be more than happy to take responsibility and build a system that works for Scotland’s economy and society As I said at Prime Minister’s questions, Brexit is a small, isolationist retreat from the world stage. The reality experienced by those going through the visa and immigration system is one of suspicion, frustration and all too frequently, rejection. It is not conducive to growing the economy or building a more tolerant society and it will not be without fundamental change How would the Minister feel if the situation were in reverse? If she wanted to visit a country in sub-Saharan Africa, or in years to come wanted to travel to promote her autobiography—about how she survived the final days of the May Administration—or had been invited by a major Government-backed non-governmental organisation in the country concerned, and was asked before she could travel to produce her birth certificate, marriage certificate, bank statements and biometric information, to pay an exorbitant fee and to travel hundreds of miles to do so, perhaps multiple times, and all at risk of being denied because there was a presumption that she would stay in the country and never leave, would she even bother applying for the visa? If she would not want to go through that experience herself, why do the Government continue to inflict it on others?