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You're absolutely right about these petitions, they're largely a waste of time, a bit of Blair window-dressing to pretend that "the people" have a voice. Almost none of them have made any difference. If the number is more than 100k, all that happens is there is a debate in Parliament, probably not well-attended, the Government trots out the official line and that's that. If the number is under 100k, Sir Humphrey can say, "Well, Minister, there isn't much support for the proposal, we don't need to review our policy." In my opinion these petitions are a snare and a delusion, and I don't sign any of them any more. It might interest you to know that there is an All-Party Parliamentary Group on expat matters such as voting rights and our frozen pensions led by Sir Roger Gale MP, and they do succeed occasionally in getting a debate (unfortunately with much the same result on pensions, but the Government has moved on voting rights, which will be restored to all British expats, however long they've been outside the UK). So it's not a bad idea to write to your MP.

It must be a few years since you renewed your passport. They don't do that any more, and as someone has already posted, VFS don't clip the corner off your old passport until you go to collect the new one.

That's interesting. It's a very long time since I read the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the challenge to the UK's pension arrangements, but I do remember a paragraph to the effect that International Labour Law does not oblige countries to pay any pension at all to citizens not living in their own country. So effectively any country can make up whatever rules it likes. That is the context by which New Zealand justifies its arrangements. I find it difficult to think of anything that justifies the archaic and anachronistic rules by which the UK pays a full pension to claimants living in the Philippines and the USA but not to those in Thailand or Canada.

It is straightforward. Presumably you have the proforma from the British Embassy requesting the changeover, on which you have to fill in your details. It might take 20 minutes or so while they fill two pages of your new passport with various stamps.

The Labour Office issues Work Permits, not visas. In my experience (more than 10 years ago), the tricky part is changing from Retirement 'O' to 'B' - you can't do it directly. In my case it involved travelling to the border with my "Employer" where a compliant officer cancelled my Retirement visa and gave me a 30-day stamp, which was subsequently converted to 90 days as WP applicant and then 1-year 'B' extension. If your HR department is any good they can swing all this for you.

Ah well, at least I know it's not just me.

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If that is true, they have changed their procedures. When I renewed mine, the passport was not defaced until the second visit to Trendy to collect the new passport.

Exactly the same experience in Rayong.

I understood from a neighbour that there is a Catch-22 in the present system, because the current official advice for a full passport is that an application takes 11 weeks, but the ETD application system has not been updated, so that if you give a date of travel more than 6 weeks ahead it tells you to apply for a full passport. I don't know how they resolved that, as they were wanting to travel in early April.

I thought they only added up to 9 months, but in any case, they don't do that any more, you'll get 10 years from the date of issue.

You must defer to the opinions of the merchant bankers posting here.

So banks in the City of London observe US public holidays. Oh yes, silly me, I never thought of that.

From the DWP website:- "If you live abroad and your payment is due in the same week as a US bank holiday, it could arrive one day late. This is because a US company processes these payments." As stated above the US company is Citibank

I didn't bother updating my Driving Licence when I got a new passport at the beginning of 2020. The sky didn't fall in. I renewed the licence October last, no problem. My banks' atms continued to give me money, I didn't make any special trips to register the new passport until I had cause to visit them for other business. I can understand that the Mor Prom data might be a problem, otherwise renewing your passport is no big deal.

I don't know about Irish procedures and charges, but there is no "extra" charge for the letter from the British Embassy - quite right too, as the charges for a new UK passport are high enough already.

Well, Sir Roger Gale MP is on the case; my email to him:- Dear Sir Roger, In recent days I have read various news reports and comments about the ballooning waiting lists for NHS treatment, and once again one of the solutions suggested is that tax relief should be given to those who arrange for private treatment, presumably by evidence of private health insurance. If such a suggestion gains traction, I wonder whether you would lobby the Chancellor and the Health Minister on behalf of retired expats like myself who continue to pay UK income tax on our pensions but have not used NHS facilities for years - in fact since April 2015 we have been required to pay cost + 50% if we were so unfortunate as to require emergency inpatient treatment in an NHS hospital on a visit to England. Are we not entitled to similar tax treatment as any UK resident citizens who provide for their own healthcare? It would be a little compensation for our "frozen" pensions. Yours sincerely, He's written to the Chancellor. Of course I'm not holding my breath:- Sir R. G to Sunak.pdf

It's only required for new passports issued to applicants in Thailand. Provincial offices don't have the knowledge, forgery detection skills or equipment to know whether a new passport is genuine or not, hence the Embassy letter, but passports which have been inspected, scanned and stamped at the border are accepted as genuine.

According to this guidance, they will ask you to confirm your request to withdraw in writing, and why. It doesn't specifically say they will return the passport, so when you ring them be sure to ask. Withdrawal of Applications (publishing.service.gov.uk) refusing-passport-facilities.pdf

If your missis wants to have a trip to Thailand anyway. perhaps the best thing to do would be to withdraw the UK passport application and if possible get the expiring passport back (I assume it's with HMPO at the moment). Then once she's in Thailand and done all the necessary to change her Thai i/d she could apply to the British Embassy in Bangkok for an Emergency Passport, supported by the expired UK passport and her new Thai i/d, just for the one-way trip back to Scotland. The important point to know is that you can't apply for an Emergency Passport whilst there is an outstanding application for a full passport, but if she's cancelled that there should be no objection. Then once back in Scotland she should have no difficulty in submitting a new application. Edit:- As we're on the Consular Forum, perhaps someone from the Consulate might comment = in principle - as to whether my suggestion would be acceptable to them.

They don't say that, they say that the names in passports of dual nationals must be the same, but their only suggestion is that the name in the foreign passport must be changed. It is perfectly possible and legal to change your UK name by deedpoll and apply for a new passport. Having been there for 30 years, she probably does. But the requirements of HMPO have been changed in the last few years to combat fraud and have therefore made life slightly more difficult for the OP's, and my, wife when renewing.

Peter Floris – His voyage to the East Indies in ‘The Globe’, 1611-1615 “The 17th ditto (August 1612) Adam Denton, Nasar Chan and the Sinnar (interpreter) were sente from hence to the river to carry the news of our arryvall, who, in regard to the towne (Ayuthia) lyethe some 30 leagues upp along the river, and came not backe agayne till the 23 ditto, bringing along with theym the Sabander and the Gouvernour of Mancock (Bangkok), being a place situated by the river, to receive His Majesties letters, butt chiefly for the presents they thought they shoulde receive, so that it is as bade(bad) there for presents as in any other place of the Indies”………….. So the place was called Bangkok (or Mancock!) long before it became Krung Thep - and corruption goes back a long way.

The Passport Office advice is rather arrogant, as the only option it suggests is that to comply with the requirement for the name in both passports to be the same, the foreign passport must be changed to comply with the details in the British one. My wife faced the same problem when she wanted to renew her UK passport a few years ago, though she is in a slightly different situation from yours, as we have been settled in Thailand for 12 years and she has few formal ties now with the UK (in terms of bank accounts etc.) It would have been much more of a workup to change her Thai name, so our solution was to change her UK married name by deedpoll to her Thai name, and apply for her UK passport in that name. That is something your wife might consider, although she would then have to notify her bank and all the other utilities who have her records. Only two other thoughts:- has she consulted the Thai Embassy about changing the name in her Thai passport? When I first met my wife in the UK she was recently divorced, and she before we became an item she got an endorsement in her Thai passport changing her previous married name to her maiden name, and we first travelled together with that whilst she still had ILR before she applied for citizenship. The naturalisation certificate is not an identity or travel document, doesn't carry a photo, and whilst production of that and other evidence might get her past UK Immigration control, I doubt very much whether any airline would accept her for boarding. She shouldn't leave the country until she has cast-iron written assurance that she would be accepted for travel on that basis. What name would she put on a return ticket? The deedpoll might be her only option.

Accepting your methodology for obtaining a new passport, unless you've used it to enter Thailand and it has the IO's stamp at a major airport, Provincial Immigration offices will want to see a letter from the Embassy. That is because those offices lack the training and knowledge, and in particular the scanning technology available to border passport controls, so they don't know whether the new passport is genuine or not. Those who renew within Thailand get an Embassy letter with the new passport. The Embassy will issue one to anyone who doesn't otherwise get one - but you do need one before you go to Immigration.

This is a bit of an anorak thing, but the Immigration photo size (4cm x 6 cm) is not the same as the current Thai passport size, which is smaller. I only realised this a few days ago when I needed to produce a new photo for my annual extension application. The passport photo app I downloaded from the Microsoft Store showed for Thailand only the smaller size, so I had to scroll through other countries to find the 4 x 6 size, which came up under Greece. That worked ok. So if you're applying to Immigration, you don't want Thai passport photos, you want the ones for Immigration. Incidentally, I used my last sheet of 4" x 6" photo paper (which gave me 3 images so will last for a while) Has anyone got away with their photo printed on plain paper?