Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to (a) ensure that all passport application systems align, (b) enable a faster roll out of Digital Application Processing to (i) help support the clearing of the passport application backlog and (ii) ease the transition from the Application Management System; and if she will make a statement.

We have already transitioned 75-85% of applications to the new digital application processing service. We will continue to transition the remaining applications gradually as new capability is developed and business changes can be implemented.

The ability to work across two stable systems has enabled us to process record numbers of applications during this period of exceptionally high demand.