§ Mrs. Maureen HicksTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his Department has completed consideration of applications for registration as British citizens made under the transitional provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe transitional provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981 came to an end on 31 December 1987. The number of applications received in 1987–88 was some 210,000 registrations and 70,000 naturalisations, of which 116,000 were received in December 1987 alone. This was far more than expected and the Government responded to the additional demand by providing more resources, including the establishment of the Liverpool nationality office, tasked with processing the remaining transitional registration applications by March 1990.
By 19 January 1990, decisions had been reached on all registration cases being processed at the Liverpool nationality office, except those where replies from applicants were awaited. These latter cases consist of those where we are waiting for the applicant to forward the fee, or to swear an oath of allegiance, or to send some other documentary evidence to establish an entitlement to registration. The time taken to complete these outstanding applications will depend upon how soon we receive the requisite information. So far, some 110,000 applications have been completed out of a total of 130,000.
635WNow that the Liverpool nationality office has largely completed the processing of registration applications, its staff have been retrained in order to process applications for naturalisation, which until now have been processed only in Croydon. This additional capacity to process naturalisations will improve the level of service given to applicants during 1990–91, and we aim to reduce the average waiting time for decisions on applications of all kinds to 11 months by April 1991.