Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were waiting for the issue of a passport (a) in each of the last 12 months for which data are available and (b) in each month in 2019.

Since April 2021, people have been advised to allow up to ten weeks when applying for their British passport as more than 5 million people delayed applying due to the pandemic. The vast majority of all passport applications continue to be dealt with well within 10 weeks.

Her Majesty’s Passport Office carries work in progress across the year as part of normal operational planning, and approximately 250,000 passport applications are being processed each week.