Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of Biometric Residence Permits are despatched to applicants within seven days of them receiving their decision letter.

UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) advise applicants they can expect delivery of their Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) within 10 working days of receiving their decision notification.

BRPs are produced on behalf of UKVI by the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA). DVLA have a service level agreement to complete 90% of production requests within one working day and the remaining 10% within two working days. For the financial year 2020/21 they achieved 69.3% (630,173) within 24 hours and 97.9% (259,977) within 48 hours. 2.1% (19,250) took longer than 48 hours.

The production of BRPs outside the 48 hour target was the result of a production failure at DVLA over a three working day period between 22 – 26 October 2020. The average processing time of the 19,250 affected was three working days. This will have enabled our secure delivery provider, FedEx, to attempt to deliver all BRPs within 10 working days of the decision notification being issued.

FedEx took over the BRP delivery contract from DX in February 2020, after a bedding in period formal reporting started in July 2020. Between 1 July 2020 and 31 March 2021 FedEx attempted to deliver 99.2% of BRPs within 48 hours of collection from DVLA, against a target to attempt delivery within 48 hours of collection for 99% of BRP packages.