African people are more than twice as likely to be refused the United Kingdom visitor visas than applicants from any other part of the world, according to research that highlights potential discrimination in British government policy.
The study, published on Tuesday, by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Africa, showed that 27 per cent of African visitor visa requests made in the two years to September 2018 were refused, compared with the overall refusal rate of 12 per cent.
For Middle Eastern and Asian applicants, the figure was 11 per cent, while for North Americans, it was four per cent.
According to the report, this has resulted in many Africans with entirely valid reasons for visiting the UK, such as businesspeople, academics and performers, being unable or unwilling to travel, due to the entry barriers. Commenting on the report, a Labour Member of Parliament (MP), Chi Onwurah, and chair of the group, said at a time when the UK needed to be open for business, the broken visas system is doing severe damage to UK-Africa relations; across a variety of sectors.
“As well as our relations, it damages our economy and society. It is embarrassing, patronising and insulting to African applicants and leaves the slogan of Global Britainâ empty and meaningless,” she said.
In one case, senior producers at the London International Festival of Theatre told the committee that they were unable to bring a dancer from the Congo to perform his personal experience of the civil war. The reason given for refusal was that they had not done enough to recruit dancers from the UK for the role.
One problem faced by visa applicants was being required to travel hundreds of miles simply to apply for a visa. Another was financial discrimination, such as people being rejected because they don’t have enough money in their bank accounts. This was given as a refusal reason even where all expenses were being paid by British sponsors.
The lack of an appeals system was also cited as a major problem, meaning that the only way to challenge a refusal is to begin again with a costly new application.
The report also raised concerns about the Home Office’s use of a risk-assessment algorithm, first revealed last month by the Financial Times, which grades applications as green, amber or red according to their level of risk.
The chief inspector of borders told the APPG inquiry he was concerned that an over-reliance on the algorithmic streaming tool could mean that decisions were not being made on the merits of the individual case but on a set of generalised and detached indicators.
While the Home Office has said it does not screen applications on racial grounds, human rights organisations, such as Liberty, have argued that indicators such as nationality are effectively proxies for race.
Responding to the report, a spokesman at the Home Office said the UK welcomes all genuine visitors from Africa and wants its visa system “to support our important and increasing business and trade ties with the continent. Visa applications from African nationals are at their highest level since 2013 and decision makers do not discriminate on the basis of age, gender, religion or race. We remain committed to getting visa decisions right the first time, every time.”
The department also said that more than 47,000 more visas were issued to African nationals in 2018 than in 2016, an increase of 14 per cent.
• Culled from Financial Times of London