Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time was for enquiries to support teams for hon. Members at HM Passport Office in each month in 2021; what steps her Department is taking to manage the (a) performance and (b) case management of those teams; and if she will make a statement.

The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members written correspondence within 20 working days.

Performance against target has been impacted by a significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan and more recently in Ukraine and about HMPO passport applications.

The Department continues to prioritise enquiries related to Ukraine and recognises that it has not been able to meet service standard in other cases. Actions are being taken to clear backlogs and drive-up performance.

Members can escalate urgent and compassionate cases via the team at Portcullis House or via engagement surgeries with the MP Engagement team.

The Department continues to recruit additional resources and has recently been loaned staff from non-operational areas to assist in clearing the backlogs. A detailed recovery plan to support a return to an acceptable service standard is being prepared.

Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022

The Department does not publish average processing times for substantive responses to correspondence.