Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what information his Department holds on the current average length of time taken to reach a decision on an application for relocation to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy.

Not all ARAP applicants will receive an eligibility decision within the same timeframe and the time taken varies enormously from case-to-case. This could be due to the complexity of the case, the need to conduct checks with other government departments, or the length of time it takes an applicant to respond to follow-up queries. Therefore, due to the significant variation, it is not possible to provide an average timescale.

I recognise the great concern all applicants to the scheme have for their safety and wellbeing. As such, considerable amounts of time, resources and personnel have been, and continue to be, deployed to ensure that applications are considered as quickly efficiently, accurately and fairly as possible.