Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of the US regarding the implementation of HR158 under the Visa Waiver Programme Improvement and Terrorist Prevention Act 2015, which prevents British nationals from travelling to the US if they may have visited Iran, Sudan, Iraq or Syria in the last five years; and what assessment they have made of whether that implementation is discriminatory.

While US immigration processes are a matter for the US authorities, we have raised with the US administration the importance of clearly communicating changes to their immigration policy. The US Customs and Border Protection service has stated publicly that “the religion, faith, or spiritual beliefs of an international traveller are not determining factors about his/her admissibility into the US”. We remain in close contact with the US Embassy in order to avoid inconvenience to British nationals travelling to the US.