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.

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)