§ Mr. Harrisasked the Secretary of State for the Horne Department when he expects to computerise passport 219W issuing in the United Kingdom and to issue the new machine readable common European Community format passport.
§ Mr. HurdOur earlier target of 1987 has had to be revised. Nevertheless, the project to computerise passport issuing is on a firm footing and the contract for the supply of the computer system has been let to Software Sciences Limited. We now plan for the first of our offices to be computerised from July 1988 and for the system to be introduced in all offices by the end of 1989. It follows that the machine readable common format passport will now be produced in mid-1988. We understand that the Netherlands and West Germany have also revised their timetables and plan to introduce their machine readable passports in 1988, too.