UK Visas and Immigration

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for raising this issue today and for his introduction to the debate. He highlighted the danger of losing sight of the personal or wider impacts that policies may have, particularly when they are ineffective or inefficient or, as he said, impractical or dysfunctional.

This has been a wide-ranging debate in which we have benefited from noble Lords’ expertise. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, spoke modestly of his involvement with Eurotunnel, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, spoke of his experience of dealing with overseas students. I would like to pick up on a few of the points that were made.

As regards overseas students, I have never understood the reasons for a net migration figure. The fact that many professional people are leaving the UK and there is a big reduction in the number of overseas students coming here and paying fees constitutes a success in the Government’s mind because it reduces the net migration figure. That is a nonsense.

It is good that we are discussing this Question today against the background of the Immigration Bill that is going through your Lordships’ House. One of the issues that concerns me, and which has been brought home in this debate, is the Government’s proposal to abolish the right of appeal against visa decisions and to rely instead on administrative review. The Minister is aware of our opposition to that stance and he understands the reasons for it. It is clear from the reports of the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration and from other reports that the Home Office is struggling to deliver a quality service and that there are huge casework backlogs, as we have heard today. Therefore, a system which allows for appeals, and for mistakes to be addressed, is even more important when we recognise the problems in the current system.

I have gone through the relevant figures before and do not want to do so again. However, more than 12,500 asylum cases are still awaiting an initial decision. That is a 17% increase on the previous quarter. The Home Affairs Select Committee revealed a previously undisclosed backlog in permanent and temporary migration decisions of 190,000. I understand that the total immigration backlog at the end of 2012 was some 502,000. The Independent newspaper has calculated that it will take 40 years to clear that backlog.

However, more important than the backlog is the quality of decision-making. The latest statistics reveal that 32% of deportation decisions, 49% of, managed migration appeals—that is, work and students appeals—and 49% of entry clearance applications were successfully appealed last year. We have heard that for some people appeals are impossible—the opportunity to appeal is just not there. Given that most of the appeals allowed are due to simple casework errors in the initial decision-making, to remove the right of appeal and go for administrative review seems to us totally wrong. The Government’s priority should be to improve the efficiency of these initial decisions, make sure that there is no need for appeals and try to ensure that we have a fair and effective system. As we have heard, we are judged on how our visa system operates for people across the world. Mistakes can have serious implications for the individuals concerned.

The cases mentioned by noble Lords raise a number of issues. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, referred to a particularly pertinent issue concerning a private company undertaking such checks—the same issue raised in the case referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. I am curious as to the standards that the Government expect private companies to adhere to, and whether they are open to the same checks and monitoring that they would have been had they remained government agencies.

We have had some powerful examples of what seem to be incredible and unreasonable decisions that have been hard for noble Lords to understand. The Minister could take away from today how many of these cases are known to noble Lords personally and how many other noble Lords and members of the public can give similar examples. I have dealt with two similar cases which I find incredible. One is a small business man known to me personally. His wife has been applying for leave to remain for some time. I have confirmed that I know it to be a genuine existing relationship. They have a child. He has been back and forward to get a decision made. The latest news is that they have given her indefinite leave to remain because they have lost the documents, but she has not heard anything about it yet, so that poor family is living in limbo.

A friend of mine who has businesses in this country and in India wanted to bring the man who cared for his father when his father was dying over for a holiday to thank him. Immigration did not understand why he did not have enough money in the bank. He had a job, a home and family to go back to, but he did not have enough money in the bank. Every time he appealed against the decision, he had to make a journey of several hundred miles. There has to be some humanity, some practicality and some common sense in our decision-making.

To come back to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, I am also aware of the case of Cameron Carpenter. It worries me enormously that people acting as immigration officials on behalf of the Government do not seem to know what permitted paid engagement is. An important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, was that our reputation could be damaged by incompetence and the cost to the system. That is the message that we should take from today: we want a fair, efficient system and one that works in our interest. There are some wise decisions and some wacky ones, such as chipping us all as we leave the country, but I hope that the Minister will assure your Lordships today that he will give all those matters his full consideration.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Steel for initiating this Question for Short Debate. It is vital for the security and prosperity of this country that we have a visa operation which is effective and transparent.

The subject for this debate is quite wide-ranging but I have very good advice. As we have heard, it will take some time completely to fix the system but I think it is important that we acknowledge the progress that has been made since we took the decision to scrap the UK Border Agency almost exactly one year ago. The international visa operation, as many, including the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, have recognised, is working well. Our standard service compares favourably with those of competitor countries but I accept that the system is not error-free. Last year, we processed almost 2.5 million applications overseas. The average processing time was seven and a half days—well within the service standard. This is despite significant rises in demand from some of our key growth markets. For example, last year in China applications rose by almost 40% on the year before.

We are also increasingly leading the world in the provision of high-quality tailored visa services. For example, we now offer priority three-to-five-day services in 70 countries, which will be expanded to more than 90 by the end of the year. We have also introduced a same day, super-priority service in India, which will be rolled out to China this summer and other countries later this year.

The Committee should be aware that none of this is at the expense of security. In the past year, we have interviewed more than 100,000 people applying to come to the UK as students to check that they are genuine and have the required language skills. I will say more about the speech of my noble friend Lord Phillips in a moment. We are also doing more detailed checks, including sharing details with other government departments, such as HMRC, to deal with those applicants who seek to abuse the immigration system.

This is not only overseas. We are also increasing interviewing and the checks that we do in our in-country operations. This is the part of the business where we have had the biggest problems in the past. Under the UK Border Agency, sadly, a lack of proper planning meant that there simply was not enough resource in place to deal with the level of work coming in. A lack of proper performance management arrangements in business areas meant that this was not spotted until it was too late, leading to the build-up of backlogs. The UK Border Agency’s closed, secretive and defensive culture then meant that Ministers and Parliament were not told the full extent of these problems early enough.

All of this, I am pleased to tell the Committee, is changing. The Government’s decision to scrap the UK Border Agency’s agency status means that UKVI sits in the Home Office and reports directly to Ministers. We have also brought in a completely new leadership team, led by Sarah Rapson, who was previously the chief executive of the successful passport service. It is instilling a much greater grip throughout the business and is committed to creating a culture which is consistently competent, high performing and customer-focused. We are seeing the results of this in performance improvements. Backlogs in temporary and permanent migration are down significantly and we are on track to completely clear workable cases by the end of this month. We have brought in new service standards that are much clearer about what customers can expect. If one was to apply today and complied with the rules one could expect to get a decision within the service standard.

We have also focused on clearing smaller backlogs that previously were not given enough priority. These include MPs’ correspondence, complaints and FoIs where poor performance contributed to a sense that the organisation was neither open nor transparent. We are clearly not yet perfect in the way we respond to these but the situation is improving. At the same time we have made significant service improvements. We have overhauled our same-day premium service centres by extending opening hours and tackling appointment harvesting. As a result, availability has increased and customer satisfaction with the service here is regularly at more than 90%. We have also launched new services such as premium postal and taken steps to tackle issues that customers have complained about, such as the fact that we hold on to their passports while we make a decision, when we do not need to.

There are, of course, still challenges. As we said when we abolished UKBA, it will take many years to completely fix the system. Some of our big challenges are in asylum, appeals and litigation, where we are seeing big rises in volumes. This is driven by world events and the work we are doing to clear backlogs and tackle abuse. Dealing with this will be a priority next year and we are bringing in extra staff to do so. We will also be continuing to focus on making sure that we are making consistent and quality decisions about people’s right to come and stay in this country. It is important to recognise that this is not always straightforward and that when making decisions on applications, case workers must carefully consider whether, on the balance of probabilities, the applicant is likely to leave the UK when they are required to do so. I suspect that that may be relevant to the case referred to by my noble friend Lord Steel. It is a matter of judgment. That is why many appeals are successful, because it is a matter of judgment. The caseworker, on his appreciation of the evidence before him, makes a balanced judgment that the applicant is likely not to return home, but when appealed the tribunal decides that it should be granted.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister but he appears to be saying that the judgment of the caseworker is wrong in so many cases.

[Earl Attlee]

I am absolutely not saying that it is wrong. I am saying that the caseworker has made a judgment and the tribunal has come to a different one. The judgment they have to make is whether the applicant will return home at the end of their stay, bearing in mind the circumstances. That has to be a judgment call.