Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Security Industry Authority's processing of license applications.

The Home Department receives regular performance updates from the SIA, including information around the processing of licence applications. In the last financial year the SIA met its performance target for processing licence applications. We are however aware of some delays in the issuing of SIA licences following the launch of its new IT system in July 2016. The SIA have introduced a series of measures to address the issues and we will continue to monitor its performance in this area.