Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason the Application Management System at HM Passport Office has not yet been replaced with Digital Application Processing.

The full roll out of the Digital Application Processing service has taken longer than originally anticipated. This is due in part to the response required to COVID-19, unexpected complexity involving transforming ways of working, and similar impacts for deliveries on which the service is dependent.

HM Passport Office has transitioned 75-85% of applications to the new Digital Application Process to date. In addition, the availability of two stable systems has enabled HM Passport Office to mitigate some of the risks in processing record numbers of applications during this period of exceptionally high demand.