Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 5 April (HL6634), how they calculated their announced savings to the taxpayer by changing the supplier of UK passports; and what that figure represents as the unit cost per passport.

As part of the procurement process, all bidders were evaluated against their individual pricing proposal. We are able to confirm that the cost of the new contract will be considerably lower than the current contract and underlines our commitment to deliver value for money to our passport customers and the tax payer.

We are unable to break this down to the unit cost per passport as the volume of passports over the lifespan of the new contract is variable and subject to fluctuations.