Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an estimate of the number and proportion of applications for British passports that have been (a) replacements for existing passports and (b) applications for first time passports over the last 12 months.

Applications for a first passport typically represent 10-15% of the passport applications processed by Her Majesty’s Passport Office.

Since April 2021, people have been advised to allow up to ten weeks when applying for their British passport from the UK. This includes all application types, including first time applications. Across the first 6 months of 2022 HMPO processed 97.7% of UK standard applications within 10 weeks.