Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department plans to take to speed up the visa application process for refugees fleeing Ukraine.

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.

As part of the Home Office’s commitment to make it easier for applicants to apply to our schemes, since 15 March Ukrainians with valid passports no longer need to go to a Visa Application Centre to give their biometrics before they come to the UK.