Oral Answers to Questions

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

1. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the adequacy of the passport application processing service for people in Wales.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

4. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the time taken to process passport applications for people in Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)]

Passport applications from Wales may be handled at all Passport Office processing sites throughout the UK. Between March and May, 98.5% of UK applications were completed within the published processing time of 10 weeks.

[Mr Dhesi]

This Conservative Government are presiding over backlog Britain, with never-ending travel chaos causing misery and havoc for hard-working people’s holiday and travel plans. Many of my Slough constituents have been waiting not weeks but months for their new passports to arrive. I know it is a similar story for the good people of Wales. Can the Secretary of State clarify how many of the promised 1,700 new members of staff the Government have actually recruited to deal with the crisis?

[Simon Hart]

I should add, for anybody who has an interest in this particular subject, that if there are individual cases that are clearly being badly held up, they should please pass them on to the Wales Office and we will do whatever we can to expedite the service. In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, 850 additional staff have been brought on since April 2021, with a further 350 arriving this summer.