§ Mr. MartlewTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the waiting time to receive a passport from the Liverpool passport office; and if he will make a statement. [85056]
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienThe Liverpool passport office's current processing time for non-urgent straightforward passport applications is 49 days. Urgent requests are being given priority and 99.99 per cent. of urgent dates are being met. In practice, 65 per cent. of the Liverpool office intake is processed in under 20 days.
Passport applications are taking longer than normal to process at the Liverpool office as a result of operational problems arising from the implementation of new high technology driven passport issuing arrangements. Also, Liverpool are dealing with very high seasonal demand for passports with intake of applications since April 1999 over 20 per cent. up on the same period in 1998.
The Agency's aim is to continue to meet customers travel dates, and to reduce its turnround time for straightforward applications to ten days by September.