The Bishop of Gloucester received the following written answer on 18th September 2025:
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester asked His Majesty’s Government:
- how many visa applications they (1) received from, and (2) approved for, Palestinians from the Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories in (a) 2023, (b) 2024, and (c) 2025; and what percentage of these were from and for Palestinian Christians.
- how many visa applications they (1) received from, and (2) approved for, Jordanian nationals in (a) 2023, (b) 2024, and (c) 2025; and what percentage of these were from and for Jordanian Christians.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab, Home Office): The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas, by nationality, in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’ [https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release]. Data on visa applications are published in table ‘Vis_D01’ whilst data on outcomes of visa applications are published in table ‘Vis_D02’ of the ‘detailed entry clearance visas dataset’[https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables#entry-clearance-visas-granted-outside-the-uk]. The latest data is from January 2005 up to the end of June 2025.
The Home Office does not routinely collect information on the religion of visa holders; therefore, it is not possible to identify how many applications or approvals were specifically from Christians.
Figures for visa applications for Jordanian and Occupied Palestinian Territories nationals can be seen in the table below. Please note that an outcome of a visa application may relate to an application raised in a previous year.
| Jordan | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 (Jan – Jun) |
| Applications | 16,837 | 9,196 | 9,068 |
| Grants | 15,713 | 7,981 | 7,253 |
| Occupied Palestinian Territories | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 (Jan – Jun) |
| Applications | 4,275 | 4,607 | 2,277 |
| Grants | 3,015 | 2,881 | 1,338 |
The Church of England in Parliament 
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