Just so you're aware, the call centre isn't likely to give you a solid answer on this either. They're poorly trained and are supposed to just answer basic questions. They are not visa officers.
The way it works is that each element of an application has a "bring forward date." Once a visa officer has processed an element of your file, it goes away until the bring forward date - which is the date by which you should have provided information, or by which another office is supposed to have returned information to the visa officer. So if they have to request a foreign embassy provide the visa officer with criminality check information, and it normally takes 2-3 weeks to get a response, they'll set a bring forward date of 4-5 weeks, just to give it enough time. They don't want to waste visa officers' time in checking applications where responses haven't yet been received.
What you're asking is whether your biometrics will pause the application until their bring forward date. I don't know. But what I do know is that there are certain checks with other countries - such as the United States - that rely on biometrics, and they need to get the biometrics first to be able to conduct those checks.
So yes, there is likely to be some element of delay in your application without biometrics. But how much or how long or whether or not other parts of your application will continue to process in the meantime, well, who knows.
