TOEIC Visa Cancellations

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) on securing this debate, and I congratulate him and other colleagues who have covered many of the core issues that are important to this debate; I will try not to repeat all those excellent points, because they have already been made. I thank Migrant Voice for the briefing that it has provided for our debate today.

It strikes me that the TOEIC issue is yet another example of the hostile environment that has been created by the immigration section of the Home Office in recent years. It certainly affects many of my constituents. Like other Members who are here today, I represent constituents who come from many diaspora communities—some short-term and some long-term.

An urgent question on Windrush was asked in Parliament earlier today by the shadow Home Secretary. Other examples of the hostile environment include section 322(5) of the immigration rules; the removal of appeal rights for many applicants; the exorbitant cost of applications; and delays, often lasting years, in making decisions. Most worrying of all—I see this in my surgery week in, week out—are completely bizarre and arbitrary reasons for the refusal of perfectly reasonable applications to come here to visit or live, or for leave to remain, or for citizenship. It is a completely unacceptable environment, and it is not just about Windrush.

Immigration policies and processes must be fair and transparent; they should also benefit the UK and the countries that migrants come from. I want to give as an example one of my constituents; he is not a student, but he has still been hit by the TOEIC issue. Back in December 2012, he applied for a visa as a tier 1 entrepreneur migrant. It took a year for his application to be refused, and at that hearing in December 2013 he gave oral evidence in English, in the presence of a barrister from the Home Office and a judge of the first-tier tribunal. Nobody at that hearing raised any concerns about his English language ability. The appeal was allowed at that time. My constituent—Mr A—waited for the implementation of that decision. He waited a year and three months, but he was refused on the basis that he had submitted a TOEIC test certificate that was cancelled by the Home Office.

My constituent, Mr A, had a partner in his entrepreneurial team, whom I will call Mr B, who was not a constituent of mine. The TOEIC certificate from Mr B was cancelled by the Home Office, but Mr B was given the opportunity to retake the English language test, whereas Mr A was not. Subsequently, Mr B had his application granted. Why, with two parallel applicants coming into the same situation to work together, was one refused the opportunity to retake the English test and one not? It is important to note that Mr A is competent in English, as in 2010 he passed the IELTS—International English Language Testing System—exam in Pakistan, with a 5.5 band. Like other Members, I have met many of those affected, and all the people I have spoken to have been perfectly able to converse in very clear English. A simple remedy, in the case of any doubt, would be to allow them to retake the English test. I certainly have no doubt about the competency in English of those I have met who have been affected.

I have written to the Home Office with a number of questions. Why does it not allow a retake of the test? Why does it take so long to get a reply, even after a case is won at the first-tier tribunal? As Mr A applied for his visa in 2012 under the old category, why did the Home Office not just grant him an in-country right of appeal according to the law at that time?

My constituent is an entrepreneur, not a student, but there is an impact on all those affected: on students—not just on them personally but on universities—on families and on the UK’s reputation around the world. How does it affect a student’s personal reputation in their home country and community, especially in those areas that have particular respect for British ways and the British state—the Commonwealth countries—when they have to tell their family and community that the British Government have told them they have cheated? These are good people who want to study and work, to bring prosperity both to their own communities and countries and to Britain, yet they have effectively been condemned out of hand by a Government and a country for which they and their communities have deep respect. That is shattering the UK’s reputation as well as shattering lives.

In this country, life has become unbearable for those who have been refused on this basis and cannot study, work or rent—they often have their driving licences removed. They are caught between a rock and a hard place: do they stay here or go home in shame? If they stay they can continue to fight, and that is why we are speaking on their behalf today.

The Government should address a number of recommendations. One thing that I and others have said is: why not just offer a repeat, trustworthy English language test? We should clear the students’ names and remove what is, effectively, a criminal allegation against them. We should put an immediate stop to detention and deportation until a decision is made and a correct process is implemented, and issue clear instructions to universities to reinstate and readmit students and allow them to complete their studies without the need to resubmit costly financial and other evidence for a new visa. In future, universities should have the power to decide on student admissions, including the type of accredited or recognised English language test that is used. The Government should not have been involved in this process. Universities should develop their own processes, including using Skype or other technology to interview students before they leave their country, to ascertain their level of English. For non-student applicants, such as my constituent, there are other ways in which that can be done, but Skype is an obvious opportunity.

Other recommendations include issuing a students’ rights Bill to protect their rights in the event of a university shutting down or a test centre failing or closing, and changing students’ visa sponsorship, so that they get a visa to study for a particular UK university but can transfer it if they need or wish to move university. A recommendation that is relevant not just to this debate, but to many other debates in this place, is to remove students from the cap on net immigration. Those students who have been deported or have had to leave the UK should be given the opportunity to resit the test in their own country and to have their names removed from the allegation list, so that they can get on with their life, go back to studying, take up employment, develop their business and regain their dignity. Finally, students and others who were deported or who have left the UK should be allowed the option to return to complete their studies, their work and their entrepreneurial activity, following the above processes.