Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to get back to the three-week service standard for processing Skilled Worker visa applications.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office has re-allocated resources following the conclusion of the seasonal student visa application surge and recruited additional staff to deal with the extremely high demand. As a result, we expect the time taken to assess a skilled work visa application continues to reduce.
The Home Office publishes data on visas in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release(opens in a new tab)’. Data on the number of applications and granted applications of the Skilled Worker visa are published in tables Vis_D01 and Vis_D02 of the entry clearance visas applications and outcomes(opens in a new tab) dataset, respectively.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time was for Skilled Worker visa applications in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office has re-allocated resources following the conclusion of the seasonal student visa application surge and recruited additional staff to deal with the extremely high demand. As a result, we expect the time taken to assess a skilled work visa application continues to reduce.
The Home Office publishes data on visas in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release(opens in a new tab)’. Data on the number of applications and granted applications of the Skilled Worker visa are published in tables Vis_D01 and Vis_D02 of the entry clearance visas applications and outcomes(opens in a new tab) dataset, respectively.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Skilled Worker visas were live as of 20 October 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office has re-allocated resources following the conclusion of the seasonal student visa application surge and recruited additional staff to deal with the extremely high demand. As a result, we expect the time taken to assess a skilled work visa application continues to reduce.
The Home Office publishes data on visas in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release(opens in a new tab)’. Data on the number of applications and granted applications of the Skilled Worker visa are published in tables Vis_D01 and Vis_D02 of the entry clearance visas applications and outcomes(opens in a new tab) dataset, respectively.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department plans to take to improve (a) transparency and (b) communication in the application system for spouse, fiancé, and unmarried partner visas.
Answered by Kevin Foster
UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) continues to prioritise Ukraine Visa Scheme applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the invasion of Ukraine, so applications for family visa routes are taking longer to process. In addition, we continue to see unpredictable levels of demand across all visa routes globally following the easing of international travel restrictions.
UKVI are committed to providing customers with information on global visa processing times, and will continue to provide updates on the Visa decision waiting times page on GOV.UK and via our commercial partners’ websites. Spouse, fiancé, and unmarried partner applicants have been informed of extended processing times via email. Customers are encouraged to consider the information on processing times before booking travel to the UK.
UKVI transparency data is published at regular intervals and the latest data can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the 24-week processing time for spouse, fiancé, and unmarried partner visas to its original 12-week service standard.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is currently prioritising Ukraine Visa Schemes applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Staff from other government departments, including DWP and HMRC, are being surged into the Home Office to help with Ukraine work and enable normal visa routes to return to normal service levels in due course.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the impact of changing without notice the service standard for spouse visa applications from 12 to 24 weeks on applicants.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is currently prioritising Ukraine Visa Schemes applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Applicants were informed of the change to a 24-week service standard on 11 May 2022 and the department is currently operating within this.
Staff from other government departments, including DWP and HMRC, are being surged into the Home Office to help with Ukraine work and enable normal visa routes to return to normal service levels in due course.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how his Department estimated the new 24-week processing time for spouse, fiancé, and unmarried partner visas; and what assessment she has made of the likelihood of that timeframe being met in the context of providing reliability for applicants.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The 24-week service standard is based on expected processing times due to the increased number of outstanding spouse, fiancé, and unmarried partner visa applications. This increase was due to the prioritisation of Ukraine Visa Schemes applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Processing times for the 24-week service standard have not yet been published. They will be published as part of transparency data in due course. The transparency data does, however, include a range of processing data and the latest data can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) spouse, (b) fiancé and (c) unmarried partner visa applications remain unprocessed for more than 12 weeks as of 8 June 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Processing times for Marriage & Family visa applications as of 8 June 2022 have not yet been published. They will be published as part of transparency data in due course.
The transparency data does, however, include a range of processing data and the latest data can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to speed up the arrival of Ukrainian refugees in the UK who are receiving ongoing medical treatment.
Answered by Kevin Foster
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what financial support the Government is providing to refugees arriving in the UK through the Ukraine Family Scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The department have not made any assessment of the potential merits of extending the £350 per month thank you payment to refugees arriving in the UK through the Ukraine Family Scheme as this is a matter for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Nationals of Ukraine coming to the UK under the Ukraine Family Scheme will be given access to work, benefits and public services as laid down in the Immigration Rules Appendix Ukraine, details of which can be found at:
Immigration Rules Appendix Ukraine Scheme - Immigration Rules - Guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)