Improving the UK Visa System

Claire Hanna Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate, and thank the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) for securing it. In doing so, I acknowledge the complexity of the issue and the dynamics, which many Members may agree with, or be susceptible or exposed to, in their constituencies. I do so also as the MP for Belfast South, which is a diverse and integrated constituency—it is certainly the most mixed population of people on the island of Ireland—and home to Queen’s University, one of the UK’s finest, welcoming students from all over the world.

The context I am speaking within is the dynamic of an island economy, with a relatively more flexible immigration system in the Republic, and some of the challenges that that creates, particularly for businesses around the border, which experience competitiveness issues. I am also aware of the experience of centuries of the Irish people feeling it necessary to travel to other places for reasons of poverty or marginalisation in Ireland. That is our national story, but the national story of this country is welcoming people, and of people being able to find opportunity and acceptance. That is part of the national story of Britain and the UK; many people have had to flee and have come to contribute, including not least my parents, early in their married life.

I will reflect on a few specific dimensions. My good friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) well covered the issues around seasonal visas and visas in agriculture and fishing—issues we have both worked on over many years. Those visas sustain coastal and rural communities in Northern Ireland and are under pressure that cannot be solved in other ways—we have both tried.

I also want to address, as others have, the proposed changes, the most egregious of which is the moving of the goalposts on leave to remain and the breach of good faith that that will represent to so many people who came in good faith. The tiered aspect of earned settlement will not only disadvantage many people in lower-paid sections of the economy—I do not know about here, but we certainly could not do without those workers, not least in health and social care—but expose some groups to the risk of exploitation. I credit Unison and the Law Centre Northern Ireland, which are campaigning broadly on this issue.

I have spoken before in Westminster Hall about the lack of access for some of the most vulnerable people in Gaza. Nobody is suggesting that everybody in that beleaguered place would or should come here, or would wish to, but people are facing entirely irrational barriers in not being able to access biometrics, with those who are bombing them effectively having the say over who can leave to access those. I think of my constituents Omar and Dalal, whom I have been supporting. They are facing daily terrible news while they work in our health system and education system, but the visa system will not facilitate them.

My third point relates to the ETA—electronic travel authorisation—and the impact of electronic visas in Northern Ireland. Protecting the UK’s border is a perfectly fair and rational thing to do. It does not work for the island of Ireland, for many reasons. We have an integrated island economy. An Estonian software engineer cannot come to the Belfast office. An Italian backpacker cannot pick up work in Derry. The hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) mentioned sport: 50,000 Indian citizens living and working in Dublin, sustaining the tech sector, cannot come up to see Ireland playing India at cricket—there is an all-Ireland team playing in Belfast. Those are irrational outworkings. The visa system does not work for the region I represent.