Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Home Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Thomson Excerpts
Monday 20th June 2022

(2 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Richard Thomson Portrait Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
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8. How many and what proportion of passport applications that were received over 10 weeks ago have not yet been processed.

Deidre Brock Portrait Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
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12. How many and what proportion of passport applications that were received over 10 weeks ago have not yet been processed.

Kevin Foster Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
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Across March, April and May, Her Majesty’s Passport Office completed the processing of approximately 3 million passport applications, with 98.5% of those from the UK being completed within the published processing time of up to 10 weeks.

Richard Thomson Portrait Richard Thomson
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It is quite remarkable, is it not, that six days on from an Opposition day debate where the Minister was asked that very question three times and failed to give a figure for the size of the passport backlog, he is still unable to give us an answer? I put it to him that perhaps the thing that would most cheer those who are languishing in that backlog—the one official piece of documentation that he could ensure is issued quickly—is his own ministerial P45.

Kevin Foster Portrait Kevin Foster
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As we saw last week, those who have nothing to offer by way of policy like to go personal. To help the hon. Member, the question was about the proportion of passport applications received. He got an answer to it, but his supplementary makes it clear that he has no ideas of his own to offer.