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Immigration

My hon. Friend is right. I will come on to the subject of removals shortly, if he can hold on. The other way to improve the asylum system is to ensure that it is faster. If we leave failed asylum seekers here for many years, as the previous Government did, they establish rights that enable the courts to leave them here. That is why I am so pleased to report that 59% of new asylum claims now get a decision within a month. The asylum system is completely transformed from what is still the public image of it. Indeed, half of new asylum claims are now entirely decided within six months. I assure him and the House that the asylum system is genuinely unrecognisable from the state that it was in a few years ago. I talked about a selective immigration policy. It is not just about numbers. We want the brightest and the best to come here, and we want to support economic growth. That is why we have consulted so carefully business and the higher education sector on our reforms. On the work front, every month since we introduced the limit, the visas on offer have been undersubscribed. It is important for the House to know that not a single valuable worker has been prevented from coming here by our limit. To promote the brightest and the best, we made the investor and entrepreneur routes more attractive and accessible, for instance through an accelerated path to settlement. The latest quarterly figures show that the numbers for both investors and entrepreneurs have more than doubled compared with the same period last year. We have opened a new route for exceptional talent, through which applicants do not need a job offer but must be endorsed by a competent body as world-leading talent. Britain has always been a nation with a worldwide reputation in the education sector. We want top students to come here. We cannot have world-class education if our institutions are closed to the outside world. That is why our changes to the student visa route are raising the standards for licensing colleges that sponsor foreign students. Only colleges offering a genuine, high-quality education will be able to sponsor international students in future. Being selective is also about enforcing the rules robustly. Our border controls must be strong. The idea of the UK border starting at Dover or Heathrow is becoming increasingly out of date. Where it is appropriate, we will continue to export our borders so that they start at airports and visa application centres around the world. If people come through France, the borders may start at juxtaposed controls at Calais or Gare du Nord in Paris, or Brussels, rather than at Dover or St Pancras International. We are working hard with France and Belgium to ensure that people cannot exploit their Lille tickets to come to this country. We will continue to work with the authorities of other countries to align and strengthen border security arrangements. We now have a network of staff who work abroad with carriers to ensure that only correctly documented passengers are brought to the United Kingdom. One statistic not often quoted about the UKBA is that last year it refused 385,000 visa applications. Every year, many thousands more people without the correct documents are prevented from boarding planes overseas in the first place. That is the best way to protect our borders, rather than waiting for people to come to this country, as we used to do.