Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases of suspected fraud and related offences were identified by HM Passport Office in each year since 2010; and how many such cases led to enforcement action by the relevant authorities.

HM Passport Office only holds data in the current format since 2014/15. The number of cases of confirmed fraud since the financial year 2014/15 are provided in the table below. The data is drawn from management information.

The figures for Fraudulently Obtained Genuine (FOG) passports are for those which were identified as having been obtained fraudulently following their issue. They were detected in the financial year shown, but the passport was not necessarily issued in that year and may have been still valid or expired.

The pre-issue fraud figure details those applications which were confirmed as fraudulent prior to a passport being issued.

HM Passport Office passes information about confirmed fraud to the police and other enforcement agencies, but holds no data on cases which led to enforcement action by the relevant authorities.