| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
21 July 2010 : Column 456W—continued
Passports: Forgery
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many forged passports were seized by police in each year since 1997. [8828]
Damian Green: The information requested is not available. The Home Office does not collect information on seizures of forged passports and the Identity and Passport Service is not routinely informed of forged passports seized by the police. Such documents would not necessarily be UK passports but could be forgeries of a wide range of national passports.
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were arrested on suspicion of offences related to passport forgery in each year since 1997. [8830]
Damian Green: The information requested is not available. The Home Office does collect and publish statistics on arrests. Statistics are collected by the main offence group (e.g. fraud and forgery). However, the greater level of detail required to respond to this question is not collected.
Visas: Information and Communications Technology
Mr Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) interruptions in service and (b) major faults in her Department's IT systems used to administer visa applications in Pakistan have been recorded in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement. [8888]
Damian Green: There have been interruptions to the visa service in Pakistan for a number of reasons over the last five years.
We do not have any formal records of any interruptions to the service in Pakistan in 2006.
There was one major IT fault recorded in 2006 (duration four hours).
The service in Pakistan was suspended for two to three days in early March 2007 to allow introduction of in-house biometric enrolment in the high commission in Islamabad and the deputy high commission in Karachi. The service was further suspended for a week in September 2007 to allow the introduction of the new commercial partner contract (which included the introduction of biometric enrolment by the Commercial Partner).
There were 14 major IT faults recorded in 2007 (resulting in interruptions ranging between 10 minutes and 23 hours).
During the first nine months of 2008 there were a number of occasions when the visa application centres (VACs) in Pakistan had to close due to individual threats received against them. This did not result in a complete suspension of the service in Pakistan.
The VACs in Pakistan closed pending a security review following the terrorist bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on 20 September 2008. The reopening of the VACs were staggered between October 2008 (Lahore) and April (Mirpur).
There were 20 major IT faults recorded in 2008 (resulting in interruptions ranging between 15 minutes and 29 hours).
There were no non-IT related interruptions to the visa service in Pakistan in 2009.
There were 13 major IT faults recorded in 2009 (resulting in interruptions ranging between one hour and 28 hours).
There have been no non-IT related interruptions to the visa service in Pakistan to date in 2010.
There have been six major IT faults recorded to date in 2010 (resulting in interruptions ranging between one hour and 38 hours).
None of the above IT faults would have caused any significant delay to applicants who had applied in good time.
| Index | Home Page |