§ Mr. VazTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what are the current numbers of applications for employment in Britain under the overseas labour scheme; and what were the figures for the years 1982 to 1987;
(2) what are the current numbers of staff employed in the overseas labour section of the Department of Employment in the current year and each year from 1982 to 1987;
(3) what is the average length of time it takes to deal with an application under the overseas labour scheme;
(4) how many specialist (a) Gujarati, (b) Punjabi and (c) Bangladeshi cooks have been given visas to work in Britain's overseas labour scheme;
(5) what are the total numbers of cases dealt with by the overseas labour section of his Department for (a) the current year and (b) 1981–82 and (c) the years 1982 to 1987 inclusive.
§ Mr. LeeThere are currently 4,320 work permit applications under consideration by the overseas labour section. Equivalent figures for earlier years are not available. At present the overseas labour section is taking 8–12 weeks on average to process applications.
The information relating to specialist Gujarati, Punjabi and Bangladeshi cooks is not collated centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The current number of staff in post in the overseas labour section is 63. The total number of decisions made on aplications and the number of staff employed for each year from 1981–82 to 1987–88, are given in the table.
Financial year Decisions on applications received Average staff in post 1981–82 16,466 56 1982–83 17,090 57 1983–84 18,662 59 1984–85 19,574 56 1985–86 20,356 55 1986–87 23,762 55 1987–88 25,851 62