Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to (a) recruit more staff, (b) offer more upgrade appointments, (c) increase the responsiveness of the helpline for hon. Members and (d) put in place other resources to mitigate delays in processing passport applications; and if she will make a statement.

Her Majesty’s Passport Office has added 850 staff since April 2021, which has enabled more passport applications to be processed than ever before. Approximately three million applications were completed across March, April, and May, and an additional 350 staff will arrive this summer to add further resilience to this processing capacity.

If a customer has made a standard application and now needs their passport sooner than the published processing times of ten weeks, they should contact the Passport Adviceline (0300 222 0000) to discuss any available options. For those who have yet to apply and need their passport more quickly, appointments for urgent services are released on a daily basis, three weeks in advance. Work to increase appointment capacity has led to the recent opening of an eighth public counter.

In light of the difficulties caseworkers have had in making contact about constituents’ passport matters, members of HM Passport Office staff are now dedicated to support on the Home Office’s MP Enquiry Line. 25 members of non-frontline staff have been trained so far, with an average of 15 staff on the phones each day. HM Passport Office staff are also available at Portcullis House from Monday to Friday, to provide in-person surgeries for the most urgent enquiries.