Immigration Bill

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I of course understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point. As he said, there are good reasons why we do not have the physical capacity for people to make their visa applications in Tehran. I will be happy to look into the processing that takes place in Dubai and Istanbul, and to see whether there is any way to ensure that the service can be of a higher standard.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

In the same vein, concern has been expressed about the distances that people in China and Russia have to travel in order to get their visa applications processed. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on what is being done to ensure that the high-value customers that we are looking for do not have to travel thousands of miles to get a visa to come to Britain?

[Mrs May]

As I have said, we have been enhancing the various services that we are able to provide in a number of countries; that includes the expansion of our network of visa application centres. My hon. Friend mentioned Russia and China. In China, we have more visa application centres than any of the other Schengen countries. We have 12 such centres there; most of our competitors have only three or four. We are also constantly working with the tour groups that bring people over to the United Kingdom, to see how we can enhance the service that we offer. The ability to apply online is also important. Yes, we require biometrics to be taken, but we are enhancing our biometric capture capability. For example, in certain cases the biometric capture capability can go to the individual applying for the visa, rather than the individual being required to go to the visa application centre. So we are enhancing these services, and we are conscious of the issues that he has raised.