Marriage (Foreign Nationals)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many foreign nationals have paid the fee to obtain permission to marry from the Home Secretary in each month since February 2005. (92665)

From February 2005 to September 2006, 27,014 foreign nationals paid the fee to obtain a certificate of approval of marriage from the Home Secretary.

Internal management information shows that numbers of applications received per month are as follows:

	Number of applications received
February 2005	786
March 2005	1,317
April 2005	1,476
May 2005	1,419
June 2005	1,624
July 2005	1,267
August 2005	1,259
September 2005	1,294
October 2005	1,088
November 2005	1,279
December 2005	901
January 2006	1,217
February 2006	1,400
March 2006	1,841
April 2006	1,339
May 2006	1,615
June 2006	1,318
July 2006	1,767
August 2006	1,346
September 2006	1,461
Total	27,014

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate has been made of the number of registration districts able to grant permission to foreign nationals to marry; and whether there are plans to increase the number. (92666)

There are 11 districts and 76 offices able to grant permission to foreign nationals to marry. There are no plans to increase this number

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average waiting time is for couples seeking permission to marry from the Home Secretary due to one or both partners being a non-European economic area national. (92667)

The information requested is not readily available and could be obtained only by examination of individual records at a disproportionate cost.

Volume 450: debated on Monday 16 October 2006