Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the current average waiting time is for a decision on a naturalisation application in (a) the UK and (b) Leeds.

The average length of time taken to consider naturalisation applications in the UK is 135.12 days. In Leeds postal code area the average length of time is 167 days. Both of these figures relate to the period 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015, which is the most recent period for which statistics on the number of applications considered have been published.

For straightforward applications where the customer has met all their obligations, the service standard is that 98.5% of cases will be processed within 6 months (183 calendar days).