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Passport Delays
Madam Speaker: We now come to the first Opposition motion. I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
3.40 pm
Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald): I beg to move,
- That this House deplores the Government's handling of the current crisis in the issuing of passports including the untimely introduction of children's passports, the untimely introduction of a flawed computer system, the unsatisfactory manner in which the above were introduced, the failure to instruct the passport office to work around the clock to meet demand, confusion over compensation, the failure to deliver passports in time for many families who have now missed overseas trips, the failure to meet the Passport Agency's turn around target of 10 days and the great inconvenience and distress caused to the general public; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to take urgent measures to ensure the speedy and efficient delivery of passports and that there are no further instances of UK citizens being denied overseas trips due to the combination of bad planning, inefficiency and complacency.
I hope that we will not witness the Home Secretary's usual formula for when something goes wrong in the Home Office. First, he smiles engagingly; then he apologises humbly; and then he shrugs helplessly, saying that he does not know how it happened. In the two short weeks for which I have held this brief, he has come to the House three times to smile engagingly, apologise humbly and shrug helplessly. Last week, he did not know why the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 happened to be minus a few crimes. Of course he took responsibility and apologised profusely, but he could not tell us why it had happened.
Yesterday, the Home Secretary was at it again. He did not know why a report had lain in the Home Office unactioned for two years during which he alone presided there. Of course he took responsibility and apologised profusely, but he could not tell us why it had happened. We, however, know why the passports crisis has happened.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), has his own explanation. On the "Today" programme this morning, he said that it was all the general public's fault, because they had panicked and were applying too early; by going and queueing for hours in the rain, they were causing the problem. It was a piece of arrogance to cover up a piece of gross incompetence.
When I visited the passport office in Petty France today, every single person to whom I spoke had an immediate case. People were not panicked into queueing
for holidays in August or September, as the Minister suggested. In some cases, the issue is not anything as pleasant as a holiday, and people need to go abroad on urgent and personal business. They are being caused not only great inconvenience but massive distress.
Queueing in the rain, in many cases since dawn, were mothers with very tiny babies, some as young as six weeks. They were there because the Government have changed the rules. All those mothers said to me, in different ways, that they thought that the Government must be barmy.
What did the Government do to cause the crisis? They alone decided--they cannot blame it on the Passport Agency, the Opposition, the previous Government or even the general public--that from last October children, including new babies, would have to have their own passport. That has led to an enormous rise in the number of applications.
The Home Secretary will say that the measure is designed to combat abduction, but the mothers to whom I spoke today could not understand that. They said that a photograph of a baby of six weeks of age will not look much like that baby a few months later. In a case of suspected abduction, what a baby looks like will not be immediately obvious.
I hope that the Home Secretary will dispel my cynicism, but is it possible that the motivation behind the change was the vast increase in revenue that would occur as a result of the extra passport applications?
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham)
rose--
Miss Widdecombe:
One parent in the queue was applying for passports for four children, so he had to pay four sets of fees when, in the past, the children would have been included on the parents' passports. Is the Secretary of State seriously going to contest that increased revenue played no part in his decision to introduce the rule?
Mr. MacShane:
I am the parent of four children, and have no problem with securing independent passports for them. Is the right hon. Lady aware that, under the previous Government, very serious questions were raised about the abduction of children? This is not a laughing matter to be treated in the flippant tone that she has adopted. She may have the same smiling face as she had when she was a baby, but I assure her that it is worth the extra money to throw some sand in the wheels of would-be child abductors. I have no problems with the rule, and neither would any serious parent.
Miss Widdecombe:
I may be wrong, but my impression from the father to whom I spoke today was that he did not have to subsist on a parliamentary salary and that the sum involved was a significant consideration for him. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the mothers to whom I spoke said that an unrecognisable photograph is not much of an anti-abduction measure. I am therefore not at all convinced that the hon. Gentleman has presented an overwhelming argument.
For a moment, let us suppose that the measure were justified. The net result has been an increase of more than a quarter of million in passport applications. That is
a fact, and it has taken place against the background of the introduction of flawed technology into the Passport Agency.
Maria Eagle (Liverpool, Garston):
Who signed the contract?
Miss Widdecombe:
I am asked, from a sedentary position, who signed the contract, and I can tell the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) that it was signed with Siemens under the Labour Government's first private finance initiative scheme. What is more, the Government pay Siemens on a case-by-case administration basis. I hope that the Home Secretary will tell the House whether the company is still making profits despite the penalties that have been imposed, and that he will do so before the hon. Lady throws out another spurious question.
The technology is flawed and--unbelievably--there are no proper back-up systems. Now I am a reasonable person, and I am the first to admit that unexpected glitches sometimes happen, that flaws will appear and that the normal smooth working of a Government Department will be held up and interrupted when new systems and technology are introduced. I admit that that can happen, but it is important to ensure that the two things do not happen together. Given the risks of obstruction to normal administration associated with the introduction ofnew technology, the Government's simultaneous implementation of the new rule for children was an unnecessary complication. It would have been sensible to separate the two changes by a considerable period. We should have had the introduction either of the children's passports, or of the technology. The Government ought not to have confused the two.
Mr. Bill O'Brien (Normanton):
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Miss Widdecombe:
When technology goes wrong, the response should be immediate. Yet it is only now--the day of an Opposition debate--that the Government have got round to saying that they will take on some extra staff and run an advertising campaign. Yet again, we see the pattern of operation employed by the Home Secretary when he responds to problems. A year and two months too late, he came to the House to put right an omission in the prevention of terrorism Act.
Miss Widdecombe:
Yesterday, the Home Secretary sounded as if he had done some great thing when he told us that he had asked the Director General of the Prison Service to ensure that the situation at Wormwood Scrubs would be sorted out, but that, too, came two years too late, long after receipt of the report.
Mr. O'Brien:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Miss Widdecombe:
Today, he stands here again--
Madam Speaker:
Order. The right hon. Lady is not giving way. Do I understand that to be correct?
Miss Widdecombe:
I should have thought that the whole House understood that, Madam Speaker, but apparently the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) did not.
Today, yet again, the Home Secretary follows his usual pattern. He has come to the House, at the last minute and once the pressure has grown and the public are worried, to tell us that he will put matters right. He seriously expects us to thank him, and to say what a wonderful thing he is doing.
I have described what I found this morning--not a public in panic, but a public massively frustrated. According to the Government's figures, given in a parliamentary answer, the number of calls that receive an answering machine message--the Government coyly describe those as courtesy messages--stood at 1.1 million in May. In April, the figure was 460,000, and in January just 118,000. There has been a tenfold increase in the number of those who receive a so-called courtesy message, which is, in fact, a brush-off, since there is no one to answer the call.
Yet the Home Secretary wonders why people who have received that answer again and again have finally decided that the only way in which they can take charge of the situation is to go to the passport office. At least they are not faced with an answering machine when they get there. However, they are faced with a massive queue to join a massive queue. The queue inside the office that I visited today was two hours long. The head of the queue outside the office had been there since dawn, and the tail for several hours.
All those people had imminent holidays or journey abroad. They had not left applications to the last moment, and in several cases, were doing as the Minister said and not turning up until the last week. Most had applied weeks ago--in one case four weeks, in another seven--but their passports had not been delivered, or, having been due for delivery from another office, they had been diverted and lost. People turned up at the passport office because it was the only way in which they could take charge of what was going on. If I were in their position, I should do exactly the same.
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