Home Office: Immigration

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

On a number of occasions over the past couple of weeks, I have described the types of decision-making in UKVI that we are seeking to improve. That includes improving the training and mentoring programmes for new caseworkers, as well as the wider assurance process, which my noble friend would expect us to do. The assurance process follows the three lines of defence and at each stage of an assessment there is scrutiny of the effectiveness of the decision-making process.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, last week’s announcement of the changes in the tier 2 visa regime for NHS staff was urgently necessary and much appreciated. Will the Minister now look at some of the bureaucratic processes of the Home Office which are still causing problems, particularly for general practitioners already working in this country, and providing valuable services to patients, when their continued service is at risk? Will she also take the opportunity to confirm that the Department of Health and the NHS have a clear code of conduct on international recruitment to prevent unethical recruitment from developing countries, a concern which has been raised in the House?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. In and of itself, the fact that doctors and nurses have been taken out of the cap will improve the bureaucratic processes and help decisions to be made more quickly. As to those doctors and nurses who are not in the occupation shortage list, the sponsor still has to go through the resident labour market test. I expect this to go more smoothly and to free up the numbers within the cap for other occupations.