Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her planned timetable is for bringing into force legislative provisions relating to safe access zones for abortion clinics.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Public Order Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 2 May. Implementation of the Public Order Act measures is staggered.
The Government respects the will of Parliament and is working to commence Safe Access Zones as soon as is practicably possible. We have been considering what needs to be done to ensure Safe Access Zones can be implemented as effectively as possible, with law enforcement agencies having a clear and consistent understanding around enforcement, and abortion service providers and protestors being clear as to what is expected under the new law.
The timescales for commencing the new Section 9 offence of interference with access to, or provision of, abortion services will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many passport applicants have used the fast-track service for applications in each of the last six months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Appointments for Fast Track and other urgent services are released three weeks in advance. While this means new appointments are released on a daily basis at each of the seven public counters, in busy periods these will be booked quickly.
In response, Her Majesty’s Passport Office has implemented measures to increase appointment capacity to further support its customers with urgent travel needs.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of (a) fast-track passport applications were being processed within seven days and (b) premium passport applications were processed within four hours in each month in the last 12 months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Her Majesty’s Passport Office provides urgent services for people who need their passport more quickly.
Where the processing time of an urgent service has been missed at no fault of the customer, they are encouraged to contact the Passport Adviceline to arrange a refund of the relevant element of the fee.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost to her Department was by bringing agency staff in to clear backlogs at HM Passport Office.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The addition of Agency staff is a routine management action which ensures the seasonal demand for passports is resourced in the most cost efficient way.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the size of the backlog of passport applications was within HM Passport Office for each of the four-week periods where data has been reported since 1 January 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Since April 2021, people have been advised to allow up to ten weeks when applying for their British passport as more than 5 million people delayed applying due to the pandemic. The vast majority of all passport applications continue to be dealt with well within 10 weeks.
Her Majesty’s Passport Office carries work in progress across the year as part of normal operational planning, and approximately 250,000 passport applications are being processed each week.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much income has been received by HM Passport Office in the last three months from (a) premium passport and (b) fast-track passport applications.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Her Majesty’s Passport Office does not hold data on passport income by application or channel type. Full passport income is published annually in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts. For 2021/22, this is planned for publication prior to the summer recess, and will be laid in the House.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of passport applications, where no additional information was needed to be requested from the applicant after receipt, were processed within 10 working days in each month in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Ahead of unrestricted international travel returning, HM Passport Office prepared extensively to serve an unprecedented number of customers, with 9.5 million British passport applications forecasted throughout 2022.
These preparations, which include the recruitment of 650 additional staff since April 2021 and with plans in place to recruit a further 550 by this summer, have ensured that passport applications can be processed in higher numbers than ever before. This was demonstrated in March and April 2022 when HM Passport Office achieved record outputs by completing the processing of two million applications.
Since April 2021, HM Passport Office has been advising people to allow up to 10 weeks when applying for their passport from the UK. However, Her Majesty’s Passport Office will always endeavor to process applications as quickly as possible, and in the simplest of cases requiring fewer manual interventions these may be processed much more quickly.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average unit cost of processing a passport was in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, (c) 2021 and (d) 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
All information covering HM Passport Office costs up to financial year 2020/21 are included within the Home Office published Annual Report and Accounts which are available via the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2020-to-2021
Data for financial year 2021/22 is due to be published ahead of summer recess.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what metrics are currently being used by HM Passport Office as key performance indicators; and how did that Office perform against those metrics in the most recent reporting period for which data is available.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Since April 2021, HM Passport Office has been advising people to allow up to 10 weeks when applying for their passport from the UK. Overseas application processing times will vary.
Less than 1.4% of the passports for UK applications printed during the week ending 8 May had been in the system for longer than 10 weeks.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of passport applications were processed within 29 working days where additional information was requested from applicants in each month in the last 12 months.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The table below shows the percentage of passport applications where additional information was requested from the customer, and that were completed within 29 working days of processing commencing, between May 2021 and April 2022:
|
Month | % Processed within 29 Days |
May-21 | 91.87% |
Jun-21 | 91.28% |
Jul-21 | 88.96% |
Aug-21 | 86.13% |
Sep-21 | 84.66% |
Oct-21 | 84.61% |
Nov-21 | 86.21% |
Dec-21 | 86.35% |
Jan-22 | 89.08% |
Feb-22 | 93.87% |
Mar-22 | 93.12% |
Apr-22 | 86.45% |