Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will assess the clarity and intelligibility of the questions asked on the UK Border Agency business visitor visa application form published in December 2012. [150548]

Mr Harper, Minister of State (Immigration): The Government supports economic growth by delivering an effective visa service which processed over 360,000 applications for business visit visas in 2012.

The application form for a business visit visa application was reviewed and updated in December 2012. The majority of the questions on the application form are there to gather background information (personal details—including where the applicant lives and with whom, what their income is, what they do for a living, details of previous travel and so forth). These are the same questions that are asked of all visit visa applicants. The questions towards the end of the form are tailored to the specific application category, and so these forms ask who the applicant is coming to the UK to see/do business with, who is funding the trip, where the applicant will stay and so forth.

Since the form was updated, the UK Border Agency has processed over 50,000 business visa applications worldwide, and has issued over 90% of them.

Currently, around 95% of applicants apply through the Agency's online application system. We are working to improve the online application process for all visa application categories (including business visit visa applications) to make it a more intuitive and customer friendly web application, including better signposting to the right visa application category and improved help text (which will be available in a number of key languages).

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