Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what HM Passport Office's policy is on when to automatically close passport applications if requested documents are not received; if she will make an estimate of the average time it took to process post at the Passport Office in the latest period for which data is available; if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending current Passport Office policy on the automatic cancellation of passport applications to prevent premature cancellations arising from delayed post; and if she will make a statement.

Customers are advised at the point of application they will not get a refund if their old passport or documents are not received within 90 days of submitting their application.

During the week ending 8 May 2022, associating supporting documents with the application could take up to 8 working days after they were physically received.

Work is in progress to extend the period when an application is automatically withdrawn to account for the time taken to associate documents to the application. In the interim, any customer who believes their application may have been withdrawn prematurely should contact HM Passport Office.