ENTRY CLEARANCE OPERATIONS WITH PARTICULAR
REFERENCE TO ISLAMABAD AND NEW DELHI
SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY
8. The Home Office is responsible for all immigration
policy matters and on-entry and after-entry controls. The FCO
runs the pre-entry immigration control, on behalf of the Home
Office, through its entry clearance operations at overseas Posts.
The FCO's role in entry clearance work is described[12]
as "to liaise with the Home Office to ensure that when Immigration
Policy and practice is being formulated, full account is taken
of the impact on FCO resources, on wider UK interests and objectives,
including bilateral relations with overseas governments, and the
effects of entry control operations on tourism, commerce, inward
investment and education".
9. The policy parameters within which the 163 FCO
entry clearance sections at overseas Posts[13]
operate are a Home Office responsibility. Our inquiry has centred
on matters arising from the operation of pre-entry immigration
control, particularly in Islamabad. The Sub-Committee, as a matter
of policy, did not take up individual cases.
10. Both Islamabad and New Delhi have large entry
clearance workloads but these differ markedly in their character.
In New Delhi, only 3.4% of applications received in 1996 were
for settlement visas compared with 20.3% in Islamabad.[14]
Nonetheless, many features are common to both types of application
and we look to the Government to consider the relevance of our
conclusions and recommendations to other Posts.
12 Ev. p.1. Back
13
Ev. p.2. Back
14
Ev. p.20. On this measure, Islamabad is more comparable with
Dhaka, where the corresponding figure in 1996 was 24.5%. Back
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