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Written question asked by Lord Grayling (Conservative) on Monday, 18 May 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 20 May 2009. It was answered by Alan Johnson (Labour) on Tuesday, 21 July 2009 on behalf of the Home Office.

Passports: Forgery

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many fake British passports (a) containing and (b) not containing biometric information have been recovered by (i) the police, (ii) the UK Border Agency and (iii) HM Revenue and Customs in each of the last five years.
Answer

The lead role in protecting the United Kingdom from the use of false travel documentation is taken by the UK Border Agency Intelligence Directorate's National Document Fraud Unit (NDFU). As part of this role, the NDFU compiles statistics on all false identity documents used for international travel and detected by the UK Border Agency (and its predecessors). Current statistical collection methods do not allow for a distinction between biometric passports and non-biometric passports.On this basis, the following table details the detections of false UK passports encountered by the UK Border Agency (and its predecessors). These figures do not constitute part of National Statistics as they are based on internal management information. The information has not been quality assured under National Statistics protocols, should be treated as provisional and is subject to change.

Detections
2004 985
2005 641
2006 409
2007 398
2008 312
Total 2,705

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
496 c1514-5W; 276829
Session
2008-09
Subjects
Fraud Forgery Passports
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk