Written question asked by Viscount Waverley (Crossbench), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Labour) on Wednesday, 11 January 2006.

British Passports

Question: How many batches of British passports are registered as stolen or mislaid by the Home Office; where such batches were stolen or mislaid worldwide; and what is the total number of passports recorded as missing.

Answer: A total of 15 passports have been reported lost in three separate incidents from UK passport offices in 2000 and none since then. In each case a full and thorough investigation was undertaken by UK Passport Service security personnel. A police investigation was also undertaken into a single incident in Glasgow in 2000 when 13 passports could not be accounted for. Details of these passports have been passed to the Immigration Service. Since 2000 there have been no reported losses of passports from British posts overseas. From 1 April 2005 until 30 September 2005, Immigration and Nationality Directorate’s General Group made 261,011 decisions in leave to remain applications. In this same period there were 103 lost passport letters issued for passports reported lost or mislaid (10 of which related to British passports) and 275 passports were mislaid by the Royal Mail (figures on how many of these were British are not kept at present). These figures represent 0.04 per cent. and 0.10 per cent. respectively of the total number of decisions made in this period.

Secondary information