UK Border Agency: Visa Applications

Debate between Lord Henley and Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will respond to the report by the chief inspector of the UK Border Agency on the handling of visa applications to the United Kingdom from Africa.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, we take the chief inspector’s recommendations seriously. We have accepted them all and have a team working to ensure that they are implemented so that we provide a high quality service for genuine applicants while ensuring that those who do not meet the immigration rules are prevented from entering the United Kingdom.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. This is an excellent report by Mr Vine and his team, but it contains some disturbing evidence and very disappointing conclusions. It refers to the disappointing quality of decision-making, the lack of an audit trail, an inconsistent approach to the retention of documents, the manipulation of performance to meet targets, bad value judgments, the use of inappropriate language, and checks that were not performed. If this was an African country, Members of this House would be standing up asking for aid to be withdrawn. The Government need to act more quickly on these recommendations, and I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that they will act more quickly than they have in response to Mr Vine’s previous reports and recommendations.

Environment: Litter and Waste

Debate between Lord Henley and Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I have not always been the greatest fan of devolution but one of its great advantages is that we can profit from lessons learnt in other countries. We will certainly look carefully at what they are doing in Wales and keep an eye on that. The noble Baroness is quite right to talk about what she referred to as “good, old-fashioned shopping bags” or the bags made available by supermarkets at a cost to encourage reuse of them. Often the problem with those is that one ends up buying too many. I have a very large stack of those bags at home waiting to be reused.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, are the Government aware of the example of Rwanda, where the Parliament and Government banned the use of plastic bags completely, leading to it being widely described as the cleanest country in the whole of Africa? The impact on litter pollution and also civic duty in Rwanda has been considerable. Will the Government look at international examples to deal with this horrendous problem?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for bringing to the House the experiences of Rwanda. I recently met the Rwandan forestry minister on a completely different matter and unfortunately, because I was not briefed on this matter, did not have a chance to discuss it with him. Should I have a chance again, I will do so. That is an option that one could look at. We are not happy that the decline in the use of single-use plastic bags has not been maintained and that there has been an increase. When we got those figures in the summer, I made it clear that, if we do not see an improvement, we may have to consider additional measures in the future, and we will certainly learn from all other countries.