Opposition Day — Passport Applications — Compensation for Premimum and Fast Track Applicants — Publication of Statistics — 18 Jun 2014 at 15:58

The majority of MPs voted against paying compensation to those who opted to pay extra for premium and fast-track passport application services, in light of recent processing delays and against the publication of monthly statistics on passport applications.

The motion rejected by the majority of MPs in this vote was:

• That this House
• expresses concern at the experience of constituents applying for passports at HM Passport Office, including lengthy delays and consequential cancellations of holidays and business visits;
• notes the Government’s response to the Urgent Question from the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford of 12 June 2014, setting out emergency measures to deal with the passport backlog after an increase in demand;
• further notes that HM Passport Office is taking over responsibility for issuing an estimated 350,000 passports to citizens overseas from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office this year;
• believes that the Government failed to properly plan to meet the level of demand this year;
• calls on the Government to expand its emergency measures by compensating passport applicants who had to pay for urgent upgrades in recent weeks because of internal delays with HM Passport Office; and :further calls for the Secretary of State for the Home Department to publish monthly figures for passport applications from within the UK and abroad compared to previous years to monitor performance at HM Passport Office.

It was made clear during debate that the upgrades referred to included the fast-track or premium services offered by the passport office though this was not made explicit in the motion.

Debate in Parliament | Source |