Context: The delay half is corroborated by the government's own published record: BIS's FY2025 annual report gives a 62-day average for 2025 against the 38 and 37 days its FY2023 and FY2022 reports gave. The conclusion — that the delays buy "no strategic gain" — is the council's own inference from members' self-reported view of foreign availability, on a sample of 21 for that question, and is not independently established.