Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made any assessment of the financial impact on students and families that experienced delays in the processing of initial BN(O) Visa applications, and/or delays in processing indefinite leave to remain applications.

There is a published service standard of 12 weeks for straightforward applications under the Hong Kong BN(O) Visa and Leave to Remain routes. For applications for Indefinite Leave to Remain the service standard for straightforward applications is 6 months. Priority services are also available for eligible applications.

The Home Office publishes data on performance against service standards in its quarterly immigration system statistics, available at: Visas, status and immigration data: October to December 2025. The most recent data on the Hong Kong BN(O) route covers Quarter 3 of 2025 and shows that 97.45% of straightforward standard visa applications and 98.89% of straightforward standard Leave to Remain applications were decided within 12 weeks. Performance on the Indefinite Leave to Remain route is not included in the published statistics for 2025, though the vast majority of these applications under the Hong Kong BN(O) route were not due to be received until 2026.