Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the UK Government is sending additional decision makers to Warsaw, Poland to deal with the backlog of visa applications in the wake of the Ukrainian refugee crisis; and what the current estimated waiting times are for processing applications from VAC in Poland.

We are committed to ensuring our operational teams have the resources they need to run an efficient and effective system. We actively monitor workflows to ensure sufficient resources are in place to meet demand, including from pressures relating to Ukraine.

The Home Office and the commercial provider operating our Visa Application Centres have surged staff across Europe to meet demand, where we can offer over 13,000 appointments to visa applicants, and UKVI staff in the UK are working seven days a week to process applications.

The Home Office continues to monitor its overall caseworking capacity for Ukrainian cases, including redeploying staff from other business areas or other Government Departments.