Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether applicants to the Innovator Visa programme will be required to apply for the existing accelerator programmes of the listed endorsing bodies.

The Tier 1 Innovator visa was launched on 29th March 2019. It has not yet been in operation for a long enough time period for any meaningful data to be collected.

A full list of authorised endorsing bodies is published on gov.uk at the following location:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/endorsing-bodies-innovator

It is a matter for endorsing bodies to decide if they will only endorse applicants to their own programmes and how to publicise their processes for obtaining Innovator visa endorsement. The Home Office has published guidance for endorsing bodies on how to assess applications at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/start-up-and-innovator-endorsing-bodies-guidance