Update from British Consul

From the outside looking in we are all just “government”, I know, but like any large organisation we are split into departments and ministries. It's stating the obvious but the British Consulates overseas, of which our Majorca Consulate is one, are part of the Foreign Office. The prime function of the Consulates is to provide assistance to British Nationals in distress when they are abroad, so for that reason our Consulates can issue Emergency Travel Documents, which are temporary documents to help people get home when for example they have been a victim of crime, or to allow them continue a journey when their passport has been lost. Consulates cannot however issue full validity passports.

Full validity passports are not issued as an emergency or assistance service, they are a vital identity document. In the UK we do not have a national identity card system and so the passport is a very important means of identification as well as doing exactly what it ‘says on the tin', that is, allowing the bearer to pass through ports or borders. The issuing of full validity passports therefore lies within the realm of the Home Office, or more specifically with the Identity and Passport Service within the Home Office.

For anyone living in the UK the passport application is dealt with in the UK. For any British National living overseas the passport application is dealt with by the relevant overseas regional passport centre. It is understandably important for British citizens in the Balearics, and overseas more widely, to be able to access a fast and secure passport service for full validity passports.

Some of you may know that there is a global project ongoing, to repatriate all passport processing from the overseas regional passport centres to the UK by mid-2014.

Already passport issuing for over 40 countries has been repatriated and the regional passport centre in Dusseldorf has been closed. This change has gone well.

At present, there is no change for customers in Spain; you should continue to apply to the regional passport processing centre in Madrid. You can find out how to do this via the Passports link on the new GOV.UK website at www.gov.uk/overseas-passports. We will advise of any future changes in the process for expatriates in Spain via this webpage, on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Britishembassymadrid), via twitter @BritishEmbassySpain and through local media. l More generally in the Consulate in Palma I am delighted to say that we have now completed our recruitment of additional staff to work with us throughout the summer.

These additional members of the team are vital to ensure that we can continue to provide a high quality service through what is our busiest period of the year.

Tourist booking numbers across the island are reported to be healthy and over the coming weeks we will be meeting with tour operators and hoteliers as part of our preparation for the months ahead.