Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Labour). It was answered on Tuesday, 19 January 2010.

Iraq: Visas

Question: My Lords, the Minister made a point about the expense involved in the issue of visas. Does he not also accept that, unless we get this right, the Exchequer will lose out considerably through loss of trade if we block or do not properly facilitate visas for business travellers?

Answer: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right—I hoped that I had touched on this earlier—and that is why the situation is being reviewed in March. I agree that we need to open this up. We need to expand our links with Iraq because there are many opportunities there. As its oil comes online, it will have the money to implement these things and so it is in our interests to do that. However, there are issues of security and cost at the moment and that is why we are going to look at the situation again to try to advance it.

Secondary information