Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce delays in processing passport renewal applications.

Over 5 million people delayed their passport applications in 2020 and 2021, and as passport demand has returned applications will take longer.

Since April 2021, customers have been advised it takes up to ten weeks to process a passport application. Between March and May, over 90% of applications processed were completed within six weeks, with approximately 98.5% completed within ten weeks.

HM Passport Office has increased its staffing numbers by 650 since April 2021 and is in the process of recruiting a further 550. This has helped to ensure that passport applications continue to be processed in higher numbers than ever before, with the processing of approximately three million applications being completed between March and May 2022.