Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many in-country (a) leave to remain and (b) indefinite leave to remain applications remain outstanding beyond their six month service standard as of 21 February 2022.

Our aim is to process all applications for leave to remain and indefinite leave to remain within our service level agreement (SLA). Each individual case is considered on its own merit, which means some cases will inevitably take longer than others to conclude. Cases may take longer dependent on the circumstances of the case, for example, if the applicant is facing an impending prosecution or has a criminal record.

If an application is deemed complex and expected to take longer than the published SLA, UKVI will write to the customer within the SLA and explain what will happen next.

Not all application routes have a six month SLA and certain routes do not have an SLA, this is due to the complexities of the applications submitted to us.

Information on our immigration routes with service standards and whether they have been processed against these standards is available as part of our transparency data, at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)