To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to (a) issue or renew passports, (b) arrange appointments to verify applicants’ identity and (c) respond to correspondence from hon. Members on the time taken to process applications.

HM Passport Office has processed more than 1.67 million UK standard applications across January and February with a total printed output of 1.86 million. Over 99.5% of standard UK applications processed within ten weeks and 95.5% within 3 weeks.