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FWIW:
I think they have been advising overseas applications would take 13 weeks.
My fiancée made an overseas application for her first British Adult Passport (citizen from birth but living abroad). Exactly 13 weeks to the day since “Documents Received” (“Application Processing” no longer showed as is the case for many others) she got an email asking if she was in England or abroad. Confirmed abroad, and then they said they’d continue to complete the application. Today they asked for a photo of an ID card which was provided. The passport has been marked as going to print today also.First passport? British citizen/national? These answers will help people answer you, though there’s little certainty to be had as sometimes people are asked for interviews, and other times not!
If it’s a “bug”, it’s taking a ridiculous amount of time to resolve. Still “documents received” and not “processing”, even though it’d been processing previously (apparently) for 9 weeks…
I was feeling hopeful after words from @LAD re: not being checked upon leaving the UK, but having tried to seek clarification from Ryanair over Twitter DM, where they asked about the route and I clearly stated this was *not* about entry to the UK but leaving, they came back with:
“For travel from or to the UK will be necessary a valid passport”.
I am continuing to question this and have provided a link to a PDF (https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/faq_travel_with_id_cards_final_for_publication.pdf) but my guess is they’ll fall back on ‘passport required’ again.
We had a call back from the progress team but missed the call and the voicemail was indecipherable. Called back the generic helpline number and a disinterested advisor said they’d put in for another call back and it would take 2 days.
@LAD, thanks for the detailed reply and some gentle reassurance re: getting home to Italy.
We had considered the problem of coming back to the UK. She doesn’t have settled status (she’s essentially an Italian resident having lived there her whole life, studying at an Italian Uni, and visiting the UK when she can). She’s a British citizen but without the proof yet (hence the passport application).
A member of staff at the Italian Consulate in London advised her against travelling on her Italian ID card, saying that whilst they ‘think’ it’s possible to leave on the ID card, then her Italian passport wouldn’t be stamped as having left the UK. This makes us think there is no benefit to getting an Emergency Travel Document to leave on, as the situation would be the same.
We may have to take the risk, and hope that either:
1) The British passport and existing Italian passport can be posted out to her home address in Italy (directly or via myself) and that she can then just come/go on the British passport without issue.
2) She declares the Italian passport as lost and gets a new one in Italy at a later date.I don’t know if border control would electronically link the new and old, and see a lack of ‘exit’ on the old one and then grill her / deny her entry the next time she wants to come back.
It is surprisingly hard to know things for sure on all these matters! Not even Ryanair support seem to be able to answer whether they’d accept it for leaving the UK.
On the upside, after 1.5 hours on the phone to the passport office today and 2 separate calls, we may be getting a call back from the progress team. Whether or not it’ll happen, we shall see… fingers crossed!
@LILIBLUE, I hope you can get your passport returned!Similar situation. My Italian partner (British citizen due to her mother being born here) is here in the UK (since Jan) and needs to go back for exams in 2 weeks. Her Italian passport is with the Durham passport office as a supporting document (documents signed for by the office on March 25th, application processing since April 13th).
She only has an Italian ID card, but isn’t sure if this is sufficient to *leave* the UK. The last thing we need is for her to arrive at the airport and Ryanair say “no”.
Not for Bootle, but to Durham. My partner is a British Citizen (due to her mother being born here) but she was born and lives in Sicily and is applying for her first British Passport. It took just under 3 weeks between the documents being signed for and them being ‘received’. The current details are:
Application being processed 11:23am on 13 April 2022 Documents received 9:13am on 12 April 2022
