Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applicants have paid for fast-track passports in each month between May 2021 and May 2022.

Urgent services are only required where an applicant needs a passport sooner than ten weeks. Since April 2021, people have been advised to allow up to ten weeks when applying for their British passport.

Between March and May 2022 approximately 98.5% of applications processed were completed within ten weeks. If an application from the UK has been with Her Majesty’s Passport Office for more than the published timeframe and the applicant is travelling in the next two weeks, then it will be prioritised at no additional cost.