Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the current backlog of cases for those seeking Leave to Remain in the UK as at 1 October 2021.

UKVI are currently facing extremely high pressure globally and this has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

To tackle this the Home Office is pursuing a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives which will speed up decision making, reduce the time people spend in the system and reduce the numbers who are awaiting an interview or decision. This includes increasing the number of decision makers and providing improved training and career progression opportunities to aid retention of staff.

We are continuing to develop existing and new technology to help build on recent improvements such as digital interviewing and moving away from a paper-based system. We are streamlining and digitalising the case working process to enable more effective workflow, appointment booking and decision-making.