Baroness Williams of Trafford
That the Grand Committee do consider the Passport (Fees) Regulations 2022.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, these regulations set the fees payable for products and services offered by Her Majesty’s Passport Office, as well as providing for fee waivers in a number of circumstances.
The regulations we are discussing today replace the 2018 regulations. They make minor changes that simplify and make the regulations more transparent, and specify that priority service fees include a booking fee that will not be refunded in certain circumstances. I want to make clear at the outset that no fee levels are being changed and the cost of applying for a passport is not increasing through these regulations.
For customers requiring their passport sooner than can be provided under the standard service, HMPO offers optional priority services that are available for an additional fee. These are the fast-track service and the premium service. Between 6 February 2022 and 8 May 2022, there have been on average 9,000 fast-track applications submitted in person and 4,000 digital premium appointments booked online per week. However, since April 2021, around 5% of customers have not attended their priority service appointment.
When a customer does not attend their appointment and fails to notify HMPO, that appointment slot cannot be used. This has a knock-on effect for others seeking to use the priority services. It is for this reason that the priority service fees will include a booking fee, which will not be refunded where a customer cancels their appointment with less than 48 hours’ notice. The fee will be £30 and reflects the costs incurred by HMPO up to the point of the appointment and as a result of not being able to reuse the appointment.
As stated just now, this will not result in an increase to the total fee; it forms part of the existing priority service fee and will not lead to customers being charged more for their appointment. We think that this will incentivise customers to ensure that HMPO is notified when they are not able to attend an appointment and helps to provide a service that is cost-efficient for the taxpayer.
We are also making minor drafting changes to the descriptions of our priority services. These changes will not have an impact on the services provided to customers nor the cost. Any future change to a priority service provision will require an equality impact assessment to be completed.
We have made a number of amendments to the regulations to make them simpler, more concise and transparent for customers. They now clearly set out what actions are taken as part of the administration of an application, when an application is deemed to have been made and when a fee will be retained by HMPO. The schedule of fees has been reduced in length and we have made the cost of priority services clearer by setting the fee separately. Previously, the fee set in the regulations included the cost of administering a passport and the priority service. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. There were quite a few questions, so I may not be able to cover absolutely every single detail, but I will start with the points made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. She and my noble friend Lady Foster spoke about people delaying—for obvious reasons due to Covid—their applications throughout 2020 and 2021. We did prepare extensively for elevated demand with no restrictions upon international travel, and those preparations have ensured that passport applications can be processed in higher numbers than ever before. In preparation for the demand for international travel returning, we have been advising customers since April 2021 to allow up to 10 weeks when applying for their passport, and this remains the case.
The noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Paddick, asked about our anticipated forecast. It is 9.5 million applications in 2022, and we are on target to deliver those. We have employed 500 staff since last April, and there will be a further 700 this summer. They will be a mixture of agency and permanent staff, because we clearly do not need 1,200 permanent staff for ever to deal with quite a short-term issue. Moreover, 90% of passports in the 10-week timeframe are being processed within six weeks.
Turning to the blue passports, I also have a blue passport and I have not had a problem with it. I have not heard of the glossy-photo issue, but I will certainly take that away and inquire about it. It is possible, as my noble friend Lady Foster said, that the technology might have been faulty, but I shall not make any inference of what the issue was.
I was asked how many passports have been issued so far this calendar year. The answer is 3.3 million, and I understand that in March and April alone 2 million were processed, which is quite a number. I will need to write on the fixed and marginal costs regarding missed priority appointments, but clearly there is a cost for someone making an appointment and not turning up. On the question of staffing, no staff were furloughed during Covid; staff were redeployed to other priority government work in the Home Office—for example, dealing with the EU settlement scheme and asylum—and to DWP, working on universal credit.
Sopra Steria has doubled its workforce in supporting HMPO since the start of 2022, alongside opening up a number of new processing centres. Its efforts have enabled the registration of applications and supporting documents on our system and the return of supporting documents to keep pace with this unprecedented demand. We raised concerns with the provider of the passport advice line, Teleperformance, about its delivery and, in response, it is urgently working to add additional staff, with 500 due to be added by mid-June.
On the argument about three months versus six months, it varies, apparently. Not to recuse myself from the information that I gave on the Floor of the House—and I will look into it more thoroughly—I actually thought a letter might be on its way to the noble Lord by now. Apparently, it is six months for Turkey and three months for Spain, but I will give the noble Lord a proper answer on that, because I, too, looked at the GOV.UK website, but I was not entirely sure whether I was right, or the noble Lord was, at the end of it.
Lord Paddick (LD)
Obviously, Turkey is not a member of the European Union and is not in Schengen. There is one rule for all EU or Schengen countries, including places such as Norway and Iceland, which is three months from departure.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I am not going to disagree with the noble Lord. I would just like to give him a comprehensive picture, including on whether it is different if you are going into or coming out of the EU.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, often goes on about the costs versus the profit that the Home Office makes. We do not make a profit. The cost of the passport goes towards our border system; it is not to make a profit. As I said, I will get back to him on costs. I can confirm that if you have paid a premium, you get your money back if your passport does not arrive in time. I will have to get back to him on children, because I do not know the answer. On what is not refunded on missing an appointment, it is not the costs of the application but the booking fee, which is £30—as I understand it from the officials behind me.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My understanding is that if you cancel within 48 hours, you give up the booking fee. If you do not cancel and do not turn up, you forfeit the whole amount: the standard application fee and the premium. In that case, the Passport Office will not be involved in the cost of producing a passport; should that not be refunded?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I did not think that was the case, but I am not going to contradict the noble Lord; I will check. I thought it was just the booking fee that you did not get back; I will double check.
I think I have answered all the questions. I have just one last point on what we did back last year. We started notifying customers by text—I think I said that on the Floor of the House a couple of weeks ago—that their passport was approaching its expiry date. We have sent some 5 million text messages to customers who hold or are about to hold an expired passport.
Lord Paddick (LD)
I have one further question as a result of what the Minister just said. I renewed my passport early because I had to change details in it, so my passport is valid for 13 years, but it is valid for only 10 years for entry to the European Union—you cannot have a passport valid for more than 10 years. Is the Passport Office sending text messages when a passport is approaching 10 years from date of issue or when it is due to expire?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
That is a very good question. I would have thought it would be at the 10-year point, but the noble Lord is absolutely right. If there are 13 years on the passport, would it send it after 13 years, and therefore your passport will be three years out of date? I will find out.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I was waiting for the Minister to inform the Committee of the current figure for the backlog. She gave us the application numbers. The application number now is 3.2 million or something, but that is a different way of answering the question. Can she update us on the current backlog figure? We had half a million, but can she update it?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Our applications forecast is 9.5 million; I said that the current number was 3.2 million. On the current status, we anticipate that we will be on target to deliver those 9.5 million. I do not know the number of people awaiting passports at this point, but I will find out.