Recommendation 6

The department must improve communication about the availability of visa extensions. This arrangement has not been well publicised, and we are concerned that there may be people who risk overstaying (or who have already overstayed) their visa because they are unaware that they may be entitled to an extension. We request that the Home Office is transparent about the scale of the issue by providing us with its estimate of the number of people whose visas have expired or will expire during the time period which would make them eligible for an extension, the numbers who have so far applied for an extension, and the numbers who are thought still to be in the country as unwitting 32 Home Office preparedness for Covidd19 (coronavirus): immigration and visas overstayers. We call on the Home Office to contact all individuals whose visas are due to expire before 31 July 2020 directly, to inform them about what they have to do to extend their visa.