Blue passports won’t be issued until late 2019

NEW blue passports will not be available to travellers until at least six months after Brexit, it was revealed yesterday.

Ministers admitted the redesigned documents in the original colour scheme, pictured above left, will not start being issued until latenext year.

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.