Entry Clearances

Mr. Ancram
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many elected representatives from other democratic countries have been refused entry to the UK since 2000.

Mr. Woolas
It is not possible to provide definitive figures on the number of democratically elected representatives of other countries that have been refused  entry between 2000 and 2008. This information can be obtained only by the detailed examination of individual records at disproportionate cost.

Mr. Burstow
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 23 February 2009, Official Report, column 152W, on entry clearances, what the (a) maximum, (b) minimum and (c) average processing time was for those applications not processed within the public service agreement target times; and if she will make a statement.

Mr. Woolas
In financial year 2007-08 we only measured visa processing times against PSA targets. We did not monitor performance outside these targets. New customer service standards for visa processing times were introduced in January 2009 and are published on the Border Agency's Visa Services website, together with actual monthly processing times for each visa-issuing post. These are end-to-end processing times which include processing at Visa Application Centres (run by our commercial partners) as well as processing at Visa Sections.