Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 16 November to Question 1561 on Visas: Applications, what is the (a) target time and (b) average time taken to process a skilled worker visa.

The Home Office makes every attempt to meet the service level agreement standard, but in certain cases additional checks are required which can mean visa requests take longer to process.

Data on performance against service standards is published through migration transparency data and can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#uk-visas-and-immigration

The Home Office also publishes information on visa processing times for applications inside and outside the UK at: Visa processing times - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)