Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to process certificate of sponsorship applications.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
It is the responsibility of individual businesses to monitor the visa expiry dates of their overseas employees and to take appropriate action to ensure continuity of employment.
The published service standard for non-complex Undefined Certificate of Sponsorship (UCoS) allocations and renewals is 18 weeks, as outlined on GOV.UK. Businesses may also opt to use the priority service, which aims to process requests within 5 working days.
Responsibility for submitting timely applications or updates lies with the sponsoring business.
Where necessary, the Home Office conducts additional checks to maintain the integrity of the immigration system, which may delay the processing of applications to assure ourselves that requests are genuine and full-time work and employment will be given to a prospective employee, for their own protection.
UK visa sponsorship for employers: Your responsibilities - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab)
The Home Office is currently operating within the published service standards for all Sponsorship applications and keeps all service offerings under review.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether people living in the UK on family visas will be exempt from the sustained economic contribution requirement under proposed changes to earned settlement.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The new earned settlement model is currently subject to an ongoing public consultation, due to conclude on 12 February 2026. Details of the earned settlement model will be finalised following that consultation.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Labour Market Evidence Group plans to visit Northern Ireland to consult local businesses.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Labour Market Evidence Group (LMEG) is supporting the UK Government’s aim to rebalance UK labour market away from an over-reliance on international recruitment and towards domestic workers and ensuring that growth-driving sectors have access to the skilled workers they need now and into the future. LMEG has been established and is meeting regularly at working level with the first formal meeting of LMEG taking place on 29th July 2025. That meeting contained representatives from:
At the first meeting LMEG members agreed a workplan in collaboration with Devolved Governments including Northern Ireland Executive. This workplan will support LMEG’s ambition, as set out in the Immigration White Paper, of working together to gather and share evidence about the state of the workforce, training levels and participation in the domestic labour market, including at Devolved Government and regional levels.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the White Paper entitled Restoring Control over the Immigration System of 12 May 2025, what assessment she has made of (a) levels of current migrant staffing and (b) the potential merits of increasing necessary staff supply in the health and social care system in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office does not monitor the staffing levels of specific sectors; this should be directed to the Northern Ireland’s Department of Health.
It is open to the Health and Care sectors to use the options available to them; this includes international recruitment providing they meet the requirements of the relevant visa route, primarily the Health and Care visa. There are no limits on the number of staff that can be recruited under the Health and Care visa system providing the criteria are met. However, the Government is clear that the health and social care sector, alongside other sectors, needs to reduce its reliance on international recruitment and increase its staffing supply from the domestic workforce.
We will continue to work with Governments across all parts of the United Kingdom.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) British and (b) Irish citizens emigrated from Northern Ireland in 2024.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Home Office does not hold this information.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many eVisa errors remain unresolved.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many eVisa errors were reported using the online portal in the last six months.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to paragraph 264 of the White Paper entitled Restoring Control over the Immigration System, CP 1326, published on 12 May 2025, whether her Department has undertaken an impact assessment in relation to its proposals to increase the standard qualifying period for settlement to ten years.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and further details on the proposed scheme will be provided at that time.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time for a decision for any asylum seeker is once they have received confirmation that their application is receiving prioritisation due to compassionate circumstances.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The requested information is not currently available from published data and could only be collated and verified for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
However, the Home Office does publish data on the number of asylum claims awaiting an initial decision by duration in table Asy_D03 of the ‘Asylum detailed datasets’, as part of the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Additionally, data on the percentage of applications processed within 6 months is published in table ASY_01 of the ‘Immigration and Protection’ data of the Migration Transparency Data collection.
Asked by: Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South and Mid Down)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time is for any asylum seeker to receive a decision from the date they claimed asylum.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The average time taken to process a substantive decision is not currently available from published data and could only be collated and verified for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
However, the Home Office does publish data on the number of asylum claims awaiting an initial decision by duration in table Asy_D03 of the ‘Asylum detailed datasets’, as part of the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Additionally, data on the percentage of applications processed within 6 months is published in table ASY_01 of the ‘Immigration and Protection’ data of the Migration Transparency Data collection.