To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) funding and (b) staff resources she has allocated to processing visa waivers and resettlement of Afghan citizens since the 1 July 2021.
Answered on
23 September 2021
Staff are being deployed flexibly to ensure sufficient capacity to respond to priorities and the department will ensure that enough resource is made available to process applications.
Over 300 people in the Home Office were working toward the response to the Afghanistan crisis, this included Border Force officers in Dubai and Kabul processing visas on the ground, and staff in Homeland Security Group and UK Visas and Immigration working on shifts throughout the day and night to process security checks. Nearly 500 call agents were assigned to the helpdesk at its peak.
We continue to monitor the workload and will make changes to staffing resources as required.