Asked by: Mike Hancock (Independent - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-EU students who were given visas to study in the UK failed to leave the UK after their studies had ended in each of the last four years.
Answered by James Brokenshire
In 2012, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) changed its methodology to
provide a better indicator of how many people leaving the UK first came here as
students. The ONS uses this data to estimate that in the year to September
2014, 133,000 non-EU students came to the UK to study for more than 12 months
while only 48,000 left - a difference of 85,000. This is partly because
students are able to extend their Tier 4 visa or switch into another
immigration route in-country, and so remain in the UK. Therefore student
emigration or the lack of it is a key driver of overall net migration.
The Immigration Act 2014 has provided new powers to implement exit checks,
which the last Labour government scrapped in 1998. The data collected by exit
checks will provide the most comprehensive picture we have ever had of whether
those who enter the UK leave when they are supposed to. The Act will also stop
migrants using public services to which they are not entitled, reduce the factors which
encourage people to come to the UK and make it easier to remove people who
should not be here.
Asked by: Mike Hancock (Independent - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the current average waiting time is for her Department to process applications for people who are seeking British nationality.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The average processing time for applications for British citizenship is 70 days from receipt of application to decision.
These figures are for the year 1 October 2013 – 30 September 2014, in line with the latest published data.
This compares with a peak average waiting time of 100 days from 1 October 2008 – 30 September 2009.
Asked by: Mike Hancock (Independent - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people seeking British nationality have been waiting more than (a) nine months and (b) one year for their application to be processed having paid all due fees.
Answered by Karen Bradley
(a) between 9 – 12 months 369 people.
(b) More than 12 months 487 people.
These figures are as of the end of September 2014, in line with the latest published data.
This compares with a peak in 2007-08 of 2592 people waiting between 9 and 12 months and 4166 people waiting more than 12 months.