£93 million passport interview scheme draws a blank

£93 million passport interview scheme draws a blank

Not a single applicant has been rejected since the introduction of passport interviews.

The Government brought in the £93million scheme last May to weed out bogus candidates.
So far 38,391 first-time passport applicants have attended the question and answer sessions and none has seen their case thrown out.

According to an official response to a Freedom of Information request, only 222 were referred to a specialist fraud squad for further investigation. These cases are outstanding.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "It was predictable that this would be a costly and unnecessary scheme and so it has proved."

How many cheats have been caught out in the passport crackdown? You guessed it... none! (Daily Mail, 23 March 2008)