§ 35. Mr. Stanbrookasked the Lord Privy Seal if he will specify the agencies other than the Passport Office, authorised to issue passports to citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies, giving the number of passports each has issued for each of the last five years, respectively, and the means which are adopted to authenticate applications in all such cases.
§ Mr. LuceStandard passports are obtained in the United Kingdom only from the passport offices, but all main post offices in Great Britain issue British visitors' 111W passports which are valid for a year for short holiday visits to specified countries in Western Europe and Canada. To obtain a British visitor's passport, one must apply in person and produce a United Kingdom birth or adoption certificate, a National Health Service medical card, a Department of Health and Social Security retirement pensioner's order book or an expired passport. In 1979 post offices issued 1,098,197 British visitors passports; the figures for the preceding years were:
1978 949,681 1977 797,609 1976 892,868 1975 1,078,008