Written questions by Olney.

Representing the House of Commons Commission, how many parliamentary passes were not returned following the conclusion of the holder's employment in each of the last five financial years.

The database is a live pass issuing system and does not retain full historical information as data is only retained for three years or less depending on the pass category, so is continually being deleted in line with our records retention policy.The vast majority of passes are returned promptly after they expire or are invalidated. The following figures show the number of expired passes not returned by financial year; however please note all these passes were deactivated and would not allow access to the Parliamentary estate.Financial year 2021–2022: 513Financial year 2022–2023: 432Financial year 2023–2024: 392

Representing the House of Commons Commission, if the Commission will publish a list of (a) civil servants and (b) special advisers who have a parliamentary pass.

We are unable to provide this information, as the pass issuing system does not categorise passholders in this way. Special advisers are not a specific category of passholder, and therefore this information could not easily be obtained from the pass data system. In any event, it would be inconsistent with data protection principles to publish such a list.It would not be appropriate to publish the personal data collected for the purposes of security pass allocation as this would not be consistent with data protection principles, therefore we are unable to provide a list of civil servants holding passes. As noted above, it would be inconsistent with data protection principles to publish personal data collected for security purposes in this way, and therefore the Commission is unable to provide such a list.

Representing the House of Commons Commission, how many holders of each pass type have access to the parliamentary estate.

The number of passes on issue changes constantly, so the following represents a snapshot of data recorded on 10 October 2024:MPs: 648Peers: 832MPs’ staff: 1,589Peers’ staff: 333Staff of the Administrations - House of Commons, House of Lords, and Parliamentary Digital Service: 4,242Metropolitan Police staff including police officers: 565Contractors: 3,028 (blue) + 1,170 (yellow) = 4,198Former MPs: 419Retired Peers: 55Political parties and whips: 181Partners of MPs/Peers and residents: 680Civil servants: 1,515Media: 472Restoration & Renewal Management: 189

Representing the House of Commons Commission, how many parliamentary passes were (a) lost and (b) stolen in each of the last five financial years.

The database is a live pass issuing system and does not retain full historical information as data is only retained for three years or less depending on the pass category, so is continually being deleted in line with our records retention policy. The following figures show the number of passes reported as lost or stolen by financial year; however please note all these passes were promptly deactivated and would not allow access to the Parliamentary estate.Financial year 2021–2022: 43Financial year 2022–2023: 76Financial year 2023–2024: 62

Representing the House of Commons Commission, if the Commission will publish a list of special advisers who have had a parliamentary pass in each of the last five financial years.

We are unable to provide this information, as the pass issuing system does not categorise passholders in this way. Special advisers are not a specific category of passholder, and therefore this information could not easily be obtained from the pass data system. In any event, it would be inconsistent with data protection principles to publish such a list.It would not be appropriate to publish the personal data collected for the purposes of security pass allocation as this would not be consistent with data protection principles, therefore we are unable to provide a list of civil servants holding passes. As noted above, it would be inconsistent with data protection principles to publish personal data collected for security purposes in this way, and therefore the Commission is unable to provide such a list.