Passports

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I give the British public more credit for their intelligence than does the noble Lord. Of course, the Croatian passport is not burgundy, it is blue, and there is a reason for that. The Croatians did not want the association with communism writ large on their passports in the form of the red colour. Some people might rather like it, though. I do not think that it is confusing. The wrong thing to do would be to scrap a load of remade passports. There is absolutely no law against what we are doing. We intend to continue to make the blue passport available from later this year, and I look forward to ordering mine.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may turn for a moment from the cosmetics of passports to the national security implications. On 12 March, my noble friend Lord Wasserman asked the Government,

“how many holders of UK passports also hold passports issued by other countries”?

The reply was:

“Her Majesty’s Passport office does not hold a central record or database of persons holding both a UK passport and foreign passport”.


Is it not time that the Government put this right?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for his persistence. It is perfectly legal to hold a passport from more than one country and the Government do not have any plans to change that.