HC Deb 12 February 2002 vol 380 c310W
Dr. Evan Harris

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average time taken to process permanent residence applications for spouses of UK residents is; and what the average time is in each quarter since January 1997. [33970]

Angela Eagle

I regret that there are no published data on decision times for individual types of settlement applications. Our aim is to decide all straightforward applications within three weeks. Due to the exceptionally high number of applications received in 2001, especially in recent months, and process changes which are being introduced to improve our longer term performance, it is at present taking up to seven weeks to decide an application. We are working to reduce this to three weeks as soon as possible.