Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of Biometric Residence Permit cards applied for under the priority service are issued within her Department's target time.

For visa applicants, their Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) will usually be available for collection either from their local Post Office or Alternative Collection Location (ACL) according to their chosen method and location of collection which they indicated during the application process. Applicants are advised to allow 10 days on arrival in the UK before attending their designated Post Office or ACL to collect their BRP. Both locations will usually hold the BRP for up to 60 days before returning to the Home Office if uncollected. Figures are not kept in relation to the length of time it takes a visa holder to collect their BRP.

Figures are not held in a way which enable us to differentiate between BRPs that were produced and issued under standard or priority services. The production of the BRP does not form part of the service level for the consideration of standard, priority or super priority applications. This is made clear at point of application. The service level for these services only relates to the length of time in which a decision will be made on an application. It is made clear that applicants should allow 10 working days for the BRP to be delivered once notification of the decision to grant leave has been sent.

Once a decision to grant leave is approved and received by the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA), which produce the BRP on behalf of the Home Office, they have an SLA to personalise 90% of BRPs within one working day of receipt and the remaining 10% within two working days of receipt. They have never failed to meet this service standard.