Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the causes of delays in the processing of applications for both leave to remain and indefinite leave to remain under the Turkish European Communities Association Agreement (ECAA); and what factors account for (1) the level of refusals relative to grants, (2) the size of the ECAA Work-in-Progress, and (3) the differences in processing performance between the ECAA and British National (Overseas) routes.

There is a 6-month service standard for the processing of applications to the ECAA route and customers are informed if their application will not be concluded in that timeframe.

To reduce the current Work-in-progress, additional resource has been assigned to this area and the Home Office expect to see increasing output and quicker turnarounds throughout the second half of 2026, as that takes effect.

Each ECAA application is considered on its individual facts prior to a final decision, on whether to refuse or grant leave, being served.

There has been a higher than forecast intake on the ECAA route over the last 12 months, and a high proportion of complex cases with large amounts of supporting evidence which must be reviewed as part of the decision-making process. This has impacted processing times and volumes of decisions which has resulted in a higher-than-expected Work-in-progress.

The processing performance of the ECAA and British National (Overseas) casework are individual to each route. There is no correlation between completion rates for British National (Overseas) Leave to Remain applications and ECAA Leave to Remain applications. Each immigration route has its own specific eligibility criteria that must be considered prior to a final decision being served.