Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the impact of the processing time for applications for Refugee Family Reunion on refugees and their families.

The average time it takes to decide or the impact of processing this information is not routinely published and could only be obtained at disproportionate costs. The Home Office are unable to report how many applications for Refugee Family Reunion are awaiting a decision.

We are currently working outside the 60 day service standard for refugee family reunion visa applications and processing times are approximately double the expected service standard timeframe. We are working hard to recover our decision-making timescales and are looking to streamline our processes and secure additional resource to support this work. We will prioritise applications where there is a particularly urgent or compelling reason to do so.