Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 6 June 2022 to Question 7920 on Passports: Applications, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of further options to ensure that people receive their passports in a timely manner.

Since April 2021, people have been advised to allow up to ten weeks to get their passport. Across March, April, and May 2022, 98.5% of applications from the UK were completed within this published processing time of up to ten weeks.

Her Majesty’s Passport Office has added 850 staff since April 2021. This has helped to ensure that more passport applications are being processed than ever before, with the processing of approximately three million applications being completed between March and May.

Processing capacity will increase further, with an additional 350 staff arriving within the summer.