Passport Office

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is always good to listen to, and his words are very wise. I will make sure that the Permanent Secretary is aware of his advice in that regard, and I am happy that he chose to make his suggestion in the way that he did.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, what proportion of the increase would have been dealt with by our overseas embassies before the arrangements were changed?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Although I have a few papers here, I cannot say off the top of my head how many of those were the result of overseas applications coming in. Noble Lords will be aware of the security reasons why those applications were moved back into this country. Doing so avoids all the difficulties that we had encountered in having passport applications overseas—for example, the lack of security sometimes in sending blank passports overseas. However, I do not believe that that is a factor in this particular case.

I have been updated on the question that my noble friend Lady Hamwee asked about the website. The website is very much up to date; all the information about passports is at the top of the list of the website.