Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to speed up the processing of passport renewals and applications; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of setting a target for the time taken to process an application once it arrives at the Passport Office.

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

As unrestricted international travel has returned, HM Passport Office has prepared extensively to serve an unprecedented number of customers, with 9.5 million British passport applications forecasted throughout 2022. This is up from the pre-pandemic average of seven million. Alongside technical solutions, such as the latest application system which means more passport applications are securely processed with fewer manual interventions, staffing numbers have been increased by more than 500 since last April. Plans are also in place to increase staffing numbers by a further 700.

These preparations have ensured passport applications can be processed in higher numbers than ever before. This was demonstrated in March 2022 when HM Passport Office achieved a record monthly high by completing the processing of over one million applications.

In April 2021 guidance was changed to advise customers to allow up to ten weeks to get their passport. Latest figures show 98.6% of passports are processed in this timeframe.