Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the Department's service standards are for responding to correspondence from Honourable Members on (a) asylum applications, (b) visa applications and (c) passport applications; and how meeting those standards and corresponding targets have potentially been affected by the outbreak of covid-19.

The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of MPs’ written correspondence within 20 working days, for all areas of the business, including asylum, visa and passport applications.

Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including items relating to the situation in Afghanistan.

The Department recognises it has not been able to meet service standard in some cases but has implemented an action plan to clear backlogs and drive up performance.