Julian Smith
Main Page: Julian Smith (Conservative - Skipton and Ripon)Department Debates - View all Julian Smith's debates with the Home Office
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman’s question is about fuel prices, which are not a matter for me, or taxation, or patrols. I repeat, however, that we are committed to working with police forces to maintain, and indeed to improve, the visibility and availability of police officers on patrol by making savings elsewhere in police forces.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
T8. At this difficult economic time, what steps is the Minister taking to make it as straightforward as possible for British businesses to take on highly skilled foreign workers, albeit under the auspices of the immigration cap?
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
As my hon. Friend knows, we are introducing a new system for tier 1 and tier 2 for work-based visas, and at the same time we are speeding up the visa both for businesses and for more general visitors. The biggest single complaint has been about the delays in the issuing of visas. I am happy to assure him that we are concerned about that. We are already beginning to see improvements, so that in many of the key markets where we need to operate our visa system is working better than ever before, and we are meeting our service standards.