Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the relationship between the decline in grants of indefinite leave to remain under the European Community Association Agreement category between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 and the simultaneous increase in grants under the BN(O) Hong Kong category in the same period.

There is no correlation between outcomes of applications on different routes for indefinite leave to remain. The outcome of each application considered by the Home Office is decided on its individual facts. The Home Office allocates resources for case working of immigration applications in line with the forecasted demand.

There has been a higher than forecast intake on the European Community Association Agreement (ECAA) route over the last 12 months, and a high proportion of complex cases with large amounts of evidence which must be reviewed as part of the decision-making process. This has impacted processing times and volumes of decisions. Additional decision-making resource has now been assigned to the ECAA routes.

The increase in grants of indefinite leave to remain under the British National (Overseas) route reflects the timing of eligibility following the route’s introduction on 31 January 2021. Those on the route generally qualify for indefinite leave after five years’ residence.