Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the capacity is for the number of appointments available per week at UK visa application centres in (a) Hungary, (b) Moldova, (c) Poland, (d) France, (e) Romania for people making visa applications to come to the UK; how many such appointments remain free at each of these centres for March 2022; and if she will make a statement.

The Home Office has surged capacity to other countries including Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic and Moldova, including a new pop-up VAC in Rzeszow, Poland.

Since Tuesday 15 March, Ukrainians with passports no longer need to go to a Visa Application Centre to give their biometrics before they come to the UK.

Instead, once their application has been considered and the appropriate checks completed, they will receive direct notification that they are eligible for the scheme and can come to the UK.

This will mean VACs across Europe can focus their efforts on helping Ukrainians without passports. We have increased the capacity at those Centres to 13,000 appointments per week.