Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of average time it currently takes to process and issue visas for non-Ukrainian nationals.

For applications not lodged under the Ukraine schemes, UKVI offers a range of service levels for applications which include Standard service (15 working days), Priority service (5 working days), and Super Priority service (next day) after a customer has provided their biometrics.

UKVI made a decision to prioritise the Ukraine Schemes following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Resources are now being returned to focus on visa routes impacted by these prioritisation decisions which should reduce the average processing times in due course. We continue to prioritise any urgent compelling or compassionate cases across all workstreams and are working to reduce the current processing times as quickly as possible.

For Standard applications lodged outside the UK, the current average processing time is as follows:

• Visitors – 6 weeks
• Students – 5 weeks
• Working/Investing – 5 weeks
• Joining Family – up to 24 weeks

Further information can be found at Visa decision waiting times: applications outside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and this is regularly updated.

For Standard applications lodged inside the UK, the current average processing times are not published though all routes are currently within the published service standards which are:

• Switching/Extending a Student, Family, Ancestry, Work, Visitor, or Graduate Visa – 8 weeks
• Switching/Extending a Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa – 12 weeks
• Applying for Settlement - within 6 months

Further information is published at Visa decision waiting times: applications inside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)