Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department made an assessment of the potential merits of issuing passport holders whose passports were near to expiry with renewal reminder letters during the covid-19 outbreak.

Since November 2020, Her Majesty’s Passport Office has sent over 5 million reminder text messages to customers with passports nearing expiry.

In February 2021, 6,000 customers were sent reminder letters in a small pilot to test the merits of this approach. Response rates were found to be considerably lower than for text messages, and due to the higher costs (over £0.39 per unit) this option has not been pursued.