Asked by: Maureen Burke (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending the application window for international students to apply for a Graduate visa in the event of their university exam results being delayed.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
If a student’s results are not expected before their current visa expires, and they need more time to demonstrate successful course completion, they may apply to extend their Student visa as set out in the Immigration Rules Appendix Student.
Asked by: Maureen Burke (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce processing times for applications for Graduate visas.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Our published transparency statistics can be found here: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK, including data on service standards.
The current publication covers to end of March 2025: Visas, status and immigration data: Q1 2025 - 98% of standard Graduate cases are considered within service standard.
We continue to operate within our service standard of 8 weeks for straightforward applications, with even faster times for our priority services.
We encourage applicants to apply as early as possible and ensure they have provided all required documents, and their university has reported successful course completion to UKVI, to avoid any delay in processing.
Where applications are complex or there is missing information, decisions may take longer. Applicants will have been informed by email if this is the case, but these emails can be missed or ignored. We encourage applicants to check their junk or spam folders and respond promptly to any request for further information. Further information on processing times is available here: Visa processing times - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Maureen Burke (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of allowing consideration of extenuating circumstances in decisions on Graduate visa applications.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Graduate route is an unsponsored route with streamlined requirements, of which a fundamental element is the need to have successfully completed an eligible course of study. UKVI have the ability to exercise discretion on a case-by-case basis where there are exceptionally compelling and compassionate circumstances.