Visas

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the average time taken to assess and process an overseas visitor’s application for a visa.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach)]

My Lords, in the financial year 2012-13, on average, visit visa applications were processed in under 10 working days—the exact figure is 9.17 working days. We measure this from the time that the customer submits their biometric information to when the application is ready for collection by the customer.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, the president of the China International Travel Service has criticised the Government’s changes to the visa system as making little difference in encouraging Chinese tourists to the UK and complains that the system is even more complicated than that to get into the US. Does the Minister accept that the potential loss of income to the UK economy remains at £1.2 billion? What urgent discussions will Ministers have with the Chinese authorities and tour operators to make it easier to apply for UK visas without compromising security, as other countries seem to be much more successful at doing this?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I read the article containing Miss Yu’s comments. It is vital that the UK is seen as being open for visitors and business. That is very much the case as far as China is concerned. The President of China has talked about there being 400 million visitors from China by 2018. We need to recognise the need for a customer focus in our visitor offer. That is why the Government have broken up the UK Border Agency into two parts, one of which deals with immigration enforcement. The other, UK Visas and Immigration, is dedicated to delivering a high-quality customer service to those wishing to enter the UK.