Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that her Department processes passport applications on time and resolves delays as swiftly as possible.

Due to COVID-19, over 5 million people delayed applying for a British passport in 2020 and 2021.

In March 2022 HM Passport Office decided over one million passport applications, the highest recorded in any month to date.

Since April 2021 British passport applicants have been advised to allow up to ten weeks to get their passport. However, HM Passport Office seeks to ensure its customers receive their passport as quickly as possible and is working alongside its suppliers to develop further ways to maximise its ability to cope with an unprecedented level of demand.

HM Passport Office has already deployed a range of tried and tested contingency arrangements, which includes the increasing of resources through recruitment and enabling the flexing of resources from across the Home Office and other government departments.

In addition, technical solutions, such as its latest digital application system, mean more passport applications are securely processed with fewer manual interventions, enabling them to be processed more quickly.