Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many passport applicants were required to send their foreign passports to the Passport Office when applying for a UK passport; and what was the average time that foreign passports were held by the Passport Office before being returned to the applicant in (1) 2021, and (2) 2022.

The volumes and types of evidence received in support of British passport applications, and the timeframe that such evidence is retained by His Majesty’s Passport Office, is not held in a reportable format.

Obtaining this data would be at a disproportionate cost.