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Written question asked by Keith Vaz (Labour) on Thursday, 31 January 2019, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 4 February 2019. It was answered by Caroline Nokes (Conservative) on Wednesday, 6 February 2019 on behalf of the Home Office.

Visas: Applications

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of people living in the UK under visitor visas who have been required to travel overseas to process their applications for (a) family visas, (b) work visas and (c) permanent leave to remain in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017 and (d) 2018.

Answer

A visitor is a person who is coming to the UK, usually for up to six months, for a temporary purpose, for example as a tourist, to visit friends or family or to carry out a business activity.

Visit visas are not granted for the purpose of living in the UK or making the UK their home through frequent and successive visits, therefore the information requested is not available

Individuals in the UK as visitors may extend their visit whilst in the UK, as long as the total stay does not exceed 6 months.

Applications to switch from visit to spouse or child settlement visa applications need to be made from overseas. Information on the number of in country extensions for main applicants previously in the visitor category is published in the quarterly Immigration Statistics, extensions table expc_01, latest edition at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2018/list-of-tables

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
215088
Session
2017-19
Registered interest declared
Yes
Subjects
Applications Visas
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk