UK Border Agency: Visas and Passports

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hooper]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they plan to review the work of the UK Border Agency with particular reference to the issuing of visas and passports in Latin America.

[Baroness Hooper]

My Lords, I originally tabled this Question for Short Debate more than a year ago when a number of horror stories were drawn to my attention about the then relatively new regional visa application process. Before doing so, however, and in the light of the information that I had been given from a number of sources, I tabled a Question for Written Answer to find out how many complaints have been received about the work of the UK Border Agency in administering the new process, to which I received a breezy reply from the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, saying that no complaints had been received. Given the number of cases that I had heard about, the volume of correspondence in the press at the time—in particular in the Independent—and the reaction of ambassadors and high commissioners posted here who were clearly at the receiving end of a lot of requests for help, I was surprised at the Minister’s reply, to put it mildly.

Perhaps I may illustrate this by quoting a couple of examples that were drawn to my attention. One was the case of a nun and her companion from the Dominican Republic, who wished to attend the celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the foundress of her order. With the guarantee of full hospitality throughout the short visit and payment of air fares also guaranteed, there seemed no reason why these two exemplary Catholic women should not be able to experience this once in a lifetime event. However, the original application was rejected, as was the subsequent appeal, without reasons being given and in spite of a considerable campaign mounted on their behalf.

Another example is that of a most distinguished retired diplomat. Indeed, he was a former deputy Foreign Minister for his country, who is married and currently living in London. He returned home to visit his sick relative and was told that he would require a visa to return to the UK and to his wife. He did eventually get the visa, but the process took months and it was very traumatic for him and for his family.

I can also quote the case of an elderly English woman living in Chile who needed to renew her passport. She discovered that she had to send it off to Washington, which alarmed her greatly and delayed the whole process.

These examples relate to Latin America, but there are many more that I could refer to, relating to other parts of the world as well. The problem common to all these cases was not just that visitors from some countries found they needed visas where perhaps they had not previously been required, but that they could not go to the British embassy in their home country in order to process the application. I discovered that the new regional system set up in, I believe, April 2008, meant that anybody from anywhere in the Americas, from Patagonia, through south and central America, Mexico and the USA, all had to make their applications to the UK borders centre in New York, online and in perfect English. This seems to be carrying centralisation to extraordinary lengths.

I am aware that the business of applying for a visa wherever you are—and whoever you are—can be tedious, time-consuming and irritating, but the UK Border Agency, on the evidence I have seen, appears to be making the process unnecessarily difficult, protracted, bureaucratic and unfriendly. I am also aware that the Parliamentary Ombudsman, in a report out almost a year ago, stated that the UK Border Agency provides “very poor customer service” and has repeatedly failed to read and reply to letters, keep proper records, keep case files together and notify applicants of decisions.

That report related mainly to asylum applications, for which the considerations may well be different. But do we really want other potential visitors to our country, who simply need to make a short visit, to visit relatives, to attend a conference or perform in a music or poetry festival, to have to go through such a bureaucratic and unfriendly system, which must make them feel unwelcome?

It seems perverse, too, that on the one hand, our education establishments are encouraged to recruit overseas fee-paying students and then the full rigours and costs of the visa application system are applied. This has certainly been mentioned to me frequently by people concerned about the subject and the need for our education establishments to be able to finance themselves independently. The same goes for the entry of people who wish to establish businesses and so on.

It seems to me that although it may be undeserved, there is undoubtedly a widespread feeling that the whole system of visa applications is a nightmare and a daunting process. This perception may exist because the new, centralised system was introduced without any explanation or, as far as I am aware, consultation. For most people, the border agency is an anonymous, faceless body. Applying for a visa used to be a personal, face-to-face transaction and that has now become a long-distance paper transaction—or rather a long-distance online transaction. Obviously, for those who are not computer literate, who tend to be older people, this creates particular problems.

The time has come to ask the Government to review the work of the UK Border Agency, to find out whether the regionally-centred system is working according to plan—whatever the original plan may have been—and to make sure that complaints are followed up and that there is a clearly understood system of complaints. It may even be necessary to devise a system whereby short-term applications—because most of the grievances I have heard about have tended to be for short-term visits—are separated from long-term applications and treated more sympathetically and sensitively, and certainly differently.

With 2012 and the Olympics drawing ever closer, we really must get this right. I thank all those taking part in this short debate, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance.