Passport office begins issuing travel documents with blue cover as remaining stock of EU versions run out
- Willow-Rose Hugman’s passport arrived days after her sister got a burgundy one
- Their mother Danielle, from Lowerstock, Suffolk, says new design looks ‘smarter’
- Home Office announced the change of colour in December 2017
The first blue British passports have been sent out to homes around the country – and one of the first recipients is a toddler.
One-year-old Willow-Rose Hugman received her first ever passport in the post on Thursday, two days after the government announced stocks of the traditional burgundy-coloured passports had run out.
Her mother Danielle Hugman, 25, from Lowerstock in Suffolk, said she can’t remember how she voted at the 2016 referendum and she has ‘no idea what Brexit is about’.
Danielle Hugman, 25, applied for Willow-Rose’s first passport in February. Now young Willow-Rose, from Lowerstock, Suffolk, is one of the first people in the UK to get a new, blue passport
Danielle and her husband hope to take their three children on a trip to Turkey in May, but the coronavirus could ruin their holiday plans
The Home Office announced a change in the passport’s colour in December 2017.
The colour was first used in 1921, but passports became burgundy after the UK joined the EU.
Mum-of-three Danielle said: ‘I’m not a very political person so to me it doesn’t matter what went on.
‘I do not believe anything politicians say so not worth listening to them.’
Danielle ordered passports for two of her children, Willow-Rose and Arabella.
Arabella’s arrived first – and it bore the old burgundy colour – but when Willow-Rose’s arrived three days later, it was in the Brexit blue.
‘I think it looks smarter,’ the stay-at-home mum said.
The Home Office announced passports would change colour in December 2017. More than two years on the first blue passports have been dispatched to homes
‘The picture page is now hard plastic so it is a little bit weirder.’
Danielle posted a picture of the new passport in a Facebook page and said nobody else has yet told her they’ve received their new one.
The family, including her husband Dominic, 31, intend to put the passports to good use soon.
‘We’ve already booked to go to Turkey in May,’ she said, but added the coronavirus outbreak could derail their holiday plans.