Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time was for a Standard Visitor visa application to be processed for applicants from Mumbai in the latest period for which data is available; whether her Department is taking steps to reduce the waiting time for those applicants; and if she will make a statement.

The Home Office does not publish data on the individual processing times by location. It does publish data of its performance against its service level agreement, which can be found on the GOV.UK webpage: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Resources are focussed on reducing the current processing times and will continue to prioritise urgent compelling or compassionate cases across all workstreams.

UKVI encourages all customers to apply in good time ahead of intended travel dates, and customers can also make use of UKVI’s optional priority visa services for visit visas in certain locations.

The Home Office is also continuing to invest in a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives which will speed up and simplify decision making, reduce the time people spend in the system and decrease the number of people who are awaiting an interview or decision.