So a man comes to me...

…and he says he’s got a simple question about getting married to his girlfriend just round the corner at the register office. He popped in there but they’d looked at him funny and sent him to see me. What’s going on? Turns out his girlfriend is from South America, living in an EU country and doesn’t have a visa to visit the UK. After that, it gets complicated. Could I just sort it out for him?

Questions beget questions

The obvious place to start is the Passports & Immigration part of the Home Office website, which directs you to a separate visas site, which starts to ask you questions. Don’t get mad – answer the questions, because then you start to get the facts relating to your particular case.

Firstly, you get a “yes” or “no” on whether you (or your girlfriend or whoever) needs a visa. If the answer’s “yes”, you are offered more information in the form of Frequently Asked Questions. If those three words make the blood run cold, give the website a chance. I thought that most of the questions were probably asked frequently, and they certainly included questions on the lips of my anxious enquirer.

I’m not saying it’s easy. This is a complicated area, and government departments have a fine tradition of making this sort of thing more complicated (see Dickens’ “Circumlocution Office”). The early government websites upheld this tradition, with the Home Office leading the way. They have got much better.

Persist, take a deep breath now and again, and deal with them on their own terms. If you are asked questions, try to answer them. If you take the view that all the information should be available without you showing your hand at all, you will defeat all their efforts to focus on your query and minimise the distractions.

Remember (he says, pedantically): there is no such thing as a general enquiry. At least, not if you want a useful answer. If the website tries to be specific, be grateful and give a little. And if you don’t quite like the answers you get, try a bit of reading around…

(From the Gateway to websites, select “Advice & help”. The Home Office’s Passports & Immigration pages are under “Immigration & nationality”.)


Take a CAB

My chum with the girlfriend problem had also visited the Citizens Advice Bureau, but they couldn’t see him because he had the wrong colour tee-shirt on and there was an “r” in the month. OK, it was some other set of reasons, but he got no joy. But the CAB Adviceguide is open to all, at any time. This website is updated regularly and is divided into four main sections, “your money”, “your family”, “your daily life” and “your rights”.

The advice you get will be impartial, with printable factsheets and pointers to sources of further advice.

Naturally neither the Home Office nor the CAB will tell you whether it’s a good idea to get married. For that you may turn to Mr Punch (“don’t”).

(From the Gateway to websites, select “Advice & help”. CAB Adviceguide is a Key Link.)