Baroness Hayman
Main Page: Baroness Hayman (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Hayman
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review the Tier 2 visa system to ensure that overseas doctors recruited by the National Health Service are able to take up their positions.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and remind the House of my interest as a member of the General Medical Council.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, the Government are committed to keeping the operation of the immigration system under review to ensure that it operates in the national interest. As my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has indicated, we are looking urgently at this issue.
Baroness Hayman
I thank the Minister for that reply, but I have to say that I am disappointed. Although the word “urgency” was used, we have not seen a great deal of urgency in action. Does he not agree that it is ludicrous and, frankly, shameful that patient care in this country is being compromised every day by the shortage of doctors and yet, every day, doctors from overseas recruited to positions in the NHS are being turned away and refused visas by the Home Office?
Yesterday, we learned that 2,360 such doctors have been refused visas. We learned that through a Freedom of Information request, not in response to my Question four weeks ago, when the Minister at the Dispatch Box did not give me the numbers. That is in the past six months. Is it not time that the Government took urgent action and ended this damaging and dogmatic policy?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right: this issue needs to be looked at seriously. That is why my right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have been discussing it. As I said, progress will be made in the very near future.