New blue passports will not be available to travellers until at least six months after Brexit, it was revealed yesterday.
Ministers admitted the re-designed documents in the original colour scheme, will not start being issued until late next year.
U.K. citizens whose passports were issued before October 2009 have been urged to renew their document “soon” if they plan to travel in Schengen-area countries after Brexit day on March 29 — but they can’t have a blue one just yet.
U.K. passports will continue to be issued in the old burgundy style before and after March 30, until the new blue design is ready in late 2019.
A paper giving post-Brexit travel advice said: ‘Blue passports will start being issued from late 2019.’ Ministers said last year that the UK will revert to its traditional blue passport after leaving the EU, in a highly symbolic move.
But it was soured by a controversial decision to award the contract for producing them to Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto, rather than the existing British producer, De La Rue. A Mail petition calling for them to be made in the UK was signed by 320,000 readers.