MSE News: Passport backlog: What are your rights?

Pincher

The 0300 number was a bit busy, but managed to get through to a human being in about 10 minutes on Saturday 14th June.
Got an appointment in Victoria, which is surprising, since the TV keeps saying they don't take appointments in London, and you have to go to Crawley or Luton.

angel00079

May be since the issue became a hot potato the 300 number will be less busy.

h15t0r1an

Looks like everyone is leaving the country then.

Nickwaffleiron

My wife and I are both British but live in Germany. My wife gave birth to our first child in mid March. As soon as we received the birth certificate we applied for a passport for the baby so we could visit family in the UK. Thinking 3 months was more than a reasonable amount of time for a passport to be processed we booked travel back to the UK. We are due to travel next week and have still not received the passport. We are told by Liverpool that they have our application and the documents provided are correct.

Last Friday we saw this information on a government website advertised in the media that MSE says I can't link to cause I'm new.

"Overseas applications

Overseas customers renewing an existing passport will be able to apply for it to be extended for 12 months. This will be done by consular staff in the country where they apply and appointments can be made from Monday 16 June. No additional fees will be charged and the security of the passport will not be affected.

Emergency travel documents for children

Parents or guardians of children living overseas who wish to travel to the UK will be able to apply for an emergency travel document in place of a new or renewed passport for their children. This will be available from the week beginning 16 June in all British diplomatic posts that have access to the passport database, subject to checks to confirm nationality and identity."

This sounded like a good option for us due to our imminent departure.

It turns out that when you look in to the details of this, the option is a complete joke.

Since Friday we have been trying to contact our local British diplomatic post to find out exactly what we have to do to get the document and what was meanth by checks to confirm nationality and identity. We finally got a response yesterday (18th June).

We need to make an appointment in Munich and we need to provide the following:

• Completed ETD application form, which can be found here. (also available at the consulate) Please use BLACK ink only.
• 1 Passport photo of the applicant. Photo must be for UK passports. More information on photo requirements can be found here.
• Printed travel itinerary (printed flight confirmation / train tickets). If you are travelling by car, please state this and give details of your journey on page 3 of the ETD application form, under question 9.
• €121 which can be paid by cash or card. Cards accepted Visa Credit / Debit, MasterCard Credit / Debit ONLY (If paying by card, please print, fill in and bring this form.
• Proof the passport application is in Liverpool. This would normally be a record delivery receipt you received from the post office when you sent the application.
• A letter from either parent that does not come to the consulate with the child, to confirm that we are able to issue an ETD to the applicant. If both parents come, the letter is not needed.
• Both parents passports
• Both parents UK birth certificates
• Marriage certificate if you’re married

Some of those requests are reasonable. Some are completely unreasonable.



1) Both of our birth certificates have already been sent to Liverpool with our application.
2) Our marriage certificate has also been sent to liverpool with our application.
3) 121Euros!!!!! In addition to the extortionate cost of the passport. The government makes a mistake and we have to pay 121 Euros!!!!!
4) Proof of postage was not a recommendation or requirement when sending the application. Why is it assumed we will have this. In any case I am able to phone up the UK and they are able to tell me my application has been received, the consulate could have access to the same information as the call centre staff I spoke to on the phone.


The consulate suggested we order new copies of our marriage and birth certificates from the internet and have them delivered to us in Germany as soon as possible. Each of these costs £23 to process and deliver. There is no guarantee they will arrive in time for our interview at the consulate.


The emergency travel document is going to cost us the best part of 300 pounds once travel to the consulate is factored in, plus time off work, the best part of 500 if we end up moving our flights because the certificates do not arrive in time.


The government have totall ballsed up here. Whoever has been sitting on this problem for weeks should be ashamed of themselves.



The government is continuing to balls up. They are not resolving the matter as far as we are concerned and there is very little we can do about it,

peachyprice

Jacqu79 wrote: »

Is it possible that ours were prioritised as we used the check and send service?

No, just luck. Once they leave the post office they arrive at the passport office in exactly the same way as any other passport sent 1st class special delivery.

I struck lucky too, sent mine off mid-April, got it back within 3.5 weeks even with Easter and a bank holiday in between. Others sent theirs before me and still haven't got it back.

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to who gets processed first.

hanfrangipane

I am travelling to Ireland in August and my passport expired last week.

Rather than risk putting my passport through the normal system I have opted to go straight for the Fast track service to get it within the week, rather than go for the potential free upgrade and the risk of it not getting done in time.

Just thought I'd post for anyone that is thinking of doing similar that I got through on the 0300 number almost straight away and have been given an appointment in Durham this Sunday, so only a 3 day wait, and then it's an 8 day turnaround for the passport.

They seem to be putting more appts on as I don't think they normally open sundays, I was expecting to need a day off work to travel to an office.

For me the extra £20 is well worth the peace of mind and I've learned my lesson to apply in advance in 2024!

katies_mum

Applied online for renewal of husbands passport on 26th May we also posted the old one, and new photo`s etc on the 26th, received the old passport back on Monday and I have just signed for his new one about 5 mins ago. Took 24 days in total.

Hope everyone else gets theirs as fast. Can now start to look for a holiday.

Caddyman

Nickwaffleiron wrote: »

My wife and I are both British but live in Germany. My wife gave birth to our first child in mid March. As soon as we received the birth certificate we applied for a passport for the baby so we could visit family in the UK........

Hi, good first post!

Clearly none of us know your full circumstances but obviously reading through your post the only passport application is for your new child (congratualtions by the way!)

I'm assuming here, because you haven't indicated otherwise, that as you live in Germany and although you and your wife are British, your child was born in Germany? What I'm driving at is, because your child was born in Germany and you live there, is your child not automatically entitled to dual UK/German citizenship? or is that not an entitlement or have you chosen not to exercise that route? Reason I'm going down this avenue is, could you not have applied for a German passport for your child and had this sorted out very quickly via the German system?

Nickwaffleiron

Caddyman wrote: »

Hi, good first post!

Clearly none of us know your full circumstances but obviously reading through your post the only passport application is for your new child (congratualtions by the way!)

I'm assuming here, because you haven't indicated otherwise, that as you live in Germany and although you and your wife are British, your child was born in Germany? What I'm driving at is, because your child was born in Germany and you live there, is your child not automatically entitled to dual UK/German citizenship? or is that not an entitlement or have you chosen not to exercise that route? Reason I'm going down this avenue is, could you not have applied for a German passport for your child and had this sorted out very quickly via the German system?

Hi, Thanks for the response.

Unfortunately, no, the baby is not automatically entitled to German Citizenship because both parents are British. He will be elligible some years down the road provided he stays in Germany, but the only option at the moment is a British passport.

Nickwaffleiron

The situation is completely different for people like myself in the situation I described above then people applying for renewals or people applying from the UK.

Before the emergency measures were announced there was literally no way we could fast track the process. As it turns ou,t as I said above, the emergency measures are so impractical that realistically there is still no way to fast track the process.

Before the removal of passport processing centres in Germany the process was apparently much slicker.