UK Entry Visas

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I am pleased to have secured this debate. I start with a slight sense of déjà vu, because in June 2016 I led a short debate in Westminster Hall on visas for visitors from sub-Saharan Africa. It was a different Minister in that debate, mind you; he went on to become the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, so who knows what awaits the Minister for Immigration if she can improve on the answers that I received then?

Sadly, many of the issues that I raised that day are still relevant today, and if anything the situation has deteriorated further and goes beyond the experiences of those in one region of Africa. The Minister will know that at Prime Minister’s questions on 24 October I raised the increasing concerns among academics, the creative industries, businesses, non-governmental organisations and basically anyone and any organisation with links to overseas counterparts who might want to travel to the UK. The experience of the visa system of both individuals and organisations stands in stark contrast to Home Office rhetoric and the Government’s stated ambition of building a “global Britain”. The situations that I hinted at in PMQs barely scratch the surface, but they all exemplify the huge frustrations created by both practical failures in the visa application system and the overall policy failure of what essentially remains a hangover of the hostile environment policy.

Throughout the summer of this year, the media were full of reports of festivals disrupted by the denial of visas to artists from different parts of the world. The director of the Edinburgh international book festival described the problems faced by over a dozen authors seeking to attend as “humiliating”. Peter Gabriel, the founder of WOMAD, expressed alarm after at least three acts were unable to perform, saying that

“our UK festival would now have real problems bringing artists into this country,”

many of whom

“no longer want to come to the UK because of the difficulty, cost and delays with visas, along with the new fear that they will not be welcomed.”

That is borne out by the experience of Celtic Connections, which has been a major highlight of Glasgow’s cultural scene for the past 25 years. Its director Donald Shaw has recently said that visa refusals are undermining the festival’s musical internationalism, and that at least two major world acts have pulled out of next year’s festival simply due to the hassle and stress of the visa application process.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this issue to the House for its consideration and on his endeavours on behalf of universities and students from all over the world. Does he agree that it is essential to our universities that there is a quick but effective visa system, and that every effort must be made to ensure that the system for applications to study here has top security procedures but at the same time is streamlined and quick?

[Patrick Grady]

Absolutely, and I will have some examples from my constituency in a couple of moments.

In the debate in June 2016 I listed example after example of delays and denials experienced by members of the Scotland Malawi Partnership. I declare an interest, because the partnership provides pro bono secretariat support to the all-party parliamentary group on Malawi, which I chair. The Minister may also know that in February, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) had to raise an urgent case at business questions, because just days before they were due to fly to Scotland a group of Malawian schoolchildren and priests had been denied visas, which they had been assured would be granted, risking thousands of pounds that pupils and families in Scotland had raised to bring them over.