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Operation Pathway

May I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and the steps that she has taken? I remind her that the Select Committee on Home Affairs has, on a number of occasions in recent reports, pointed out its concerns about the entry clearance operation in Islamabad and, especially, that people are not routinely interviewed there. Will she confirm that part of the operation actually takes place across the road from here, in King Charles street, where some visas are granted? The Home Secretary will know that I wrote to her recently to express concern not about the leave of absence for the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), the entry clearance Minister—we wish her well on her maternity leave—but about the arrangement that the Home Secretary has made to divide up that Minister’s post between four other Ministers. Surely what is required now, with all the initiatives that the Home Secretary is quite properly undertaking, is one Minister to oversee the entry clearance operation, rather than dividing it between other Ministers, who are extremely busy at the moment.