To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of UK passports (1) in circulation, and (2) potential circulation that are the subject of fraudulent production.
Answered on
25 September 2018
Her Majesty's Passport Office does not monitor or record data on British passport holders who enter or leave the UK. On 31 December 2017, there were just under 50 million valid UK passports in issue that were not cancelled, lost or stolen. This data is calculated at the end of each calendar year.
HM Passport Office does not estimate the numbers of passports which might have been obtained fraudulently but the following table details the detections of fraudulently obtained passports in the last five years.
Financial Year | Fraudulently Obtained document detections |
2013/14 | 1,223 |
2014/15 | 548 |
2015/16 | 1,013 |
2016/17 | 559 |
2017/18 | 515 |