Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will issue a response to Early Day Motion 676, British Women and the New British Passport.

The theme for the latest design is ‘Creative United Kingdom’ and celebrates 500 years of creativity in the United Kingdom. It features well known images from artists, landmarks and architecture, iconic British innovations and the performing arts and represents all four countries in the UK.

The images of Ada Lovelace, for her continued importance to modern day computing, and Elisabeth Scott, as a pioneer for women in architecture, are rightly deserving of their place within this celebration of creativity.

The new passport design has been in development since February 2013 and it has been necessary to secure the appropriate consents in order to use particular images. Narrowing the image choices down to a final number was an extremely difficult decision. The images chosen within the new passport design have enabled the use of evolving security technology to make it even more difficult to commit passport fraud. Passports featuring the new design have started to be issued.