UK Immigration News

Willie Walsh, the chief executive of International Airlines Group, has said that the UK's visa regime is damaging trade and tourism with China.

Mr Walsh told The Guardian newspaper 'The government talks a good talk about wanting to do business in China but, if they're going to translate that into real opportunity, they're going to have to look more closely at the visa issue'.

The UK's Business Minister Vince Cable has told an audience of activists at the Liberal Democrat Party conference that 'toxic' public opinion in the UK makes it difficult for politicians to make a sensible, business-based case for immigration.

Mr Cable told a fringe meeting at the conference in Glasgow that it was difficult to make an 'economically rational case' for immigration because 'we are dealing with an absolutely toxic public opinion'.

John Vine, the UK's chief independent inspector of borders and immigration, has released a report which criticises the UK's Home Office for the quality and promptness of its decision making on Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visas. The report states that the Home Office did not keep adequate records, made decisions based on flawed evidence and allowed a backlog of nearly 10,000 cases to build up in 2012.

The UK's business minister Vince Cable has said that he will urge the Home Secretary Theresa May, who is responsible for the UK's immigration regime, to drop a plan to make some applicants for UK visas to pay 'security bonds' of up to £3,000 before receiving a visa. Mr Cable told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on 11th September 2013 that the bonds would provoke 'outrage' in countries where some nationals would be required to pay the bond.

The UK's immigration minister Mark Harper has announced that he intends to take steps to 'slow the path to settlement for refugees'. The announcement came in a written ministerial statement released in the House of Commons on 6th September 2013.

Mr Harper has also announced 'changes to the way we handle settlement applications for refugees who have committed crimes' and a new power to 'curtail leave for persistent or serious offenders'.

The UK immigration minister, Mark Harper, has announced a range of changes to the Immigration Rules which should come into force on 1st October 2013. Among the main changes is a decision to allow some 'locally engaged staff in Afghanistan' (including interpreters) to relocate to the UK. It is not clear how many staff will be able to settle in the UK.