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Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but, given the observations

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made by the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien), it is essential to establish whether his views are shared by Ministers. Do those on the Treasury Bench go in for sleepwalking in the way that the hon. Gentleman on the Back Bench does?

Miss Widdecombe: That would indeed be an intriguing question.

Does the Home Secretary agree that, as a result of his requirement that children should have their own passport and that parents should apply on their behalf, the number of applications for children's passports this year so far--I need hardly point out, even to the right hon. Gentleman, that we are only half way through the year--is now 796,000; whereas the figure for the whole of last year was only 412,000? Might not the right hon. Gentleman have deduced from that vast increase that extraordinary measures were necessary? Was it not exactly the wrong time to put not only extraordinary measures, but all ordinary measures, at risk by introducing new technology?

Mr. Maclean: Before my right hon. Friend resumes her seat, will she ask the Home Secretary one more crucial question regarding the allegations that security has been relaxed in order to increase the output of the Passport Agency? She will be aware that, in July 1997, the Under-Secretary said that the new computer would improve security. However, I understand that on 24 February this year, instructions were sent out to drop eight special security checks so as to improve output. In addition, there are allegations that those measures were later dropped, because of the scandal that they could produce.

Miss Widdecombe: That is indeed an important issue, and I should be grateful if the Home Secretary commented on it. He should also tell the House whether it is true that Siemens staff have been processing applications, and whether he envisages any problems arising as a result.

I am sure, because it is his style, that the Home Secretary will stand at the Dispatch Box and apologise, but, on this occasion, let him not shrug. Let him not boast about last-minute measures, but let him make an honest analysis of what has gone wrong, tell us where responsibility lies and, for once, tell us how he is going to get a grip on his Department. For the third time in two weeks, he has had to come to the House to repent of his sins. It is time he learned to go and sin no more.

4.10 pm

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"acknowledges the difficult operational situation that the Passport Agency is facing and greatly regrets the inconvenience caused to the public; notes the measures that the Agency is taking to remedy the situation including the deployment of 300 additional staff, the streamlining of processes to boost productivity whilst maintaining security and the willingness of Agency staff to work seven days a week to help clear the arrears; further notes that in spite of this difficult position the Agency is meeting 99.99 per cent. of travel dates and will continue to do so throughout the summer and beyond; and agrees that it is right to introduce the policy of separate passports for children."

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I may indeed repent, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The righthon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) opened her remarks by sneering at the idea that the Secretary of State for the Home Department should come to the House to apologise and accept responsibility for something that had gone wrong. We understand why someone who served in the previous Administration should find either the concept of an apology or the idea of accepting responsibility wholly alien.

It is true that, in every Government Department, under every Administration, things go wrong from time to time. It is also true--as the right hon. Lady has every reason to know--that things go wrong in the Home Office more often than anywhere else. Moreover, when things go wrong, they normally do so in threes or fours. Of course I would prefer to be performing my customary task of coming to the House and setting out the achievements of the Government and of the Home Office. There is a major difference between this Government and our predecessor--and it is one of the reasons why the previous Government were drummed out of office in the most dramatic defeat since the war. Under the previous Government, when things went wrong--as they inevitably did occasionally--Conservative Ministers did not come to the House to apologise when an apology was necessary; nor did they accept responsibility. They wriggled and evaded responsibility every time.

Conservative Ministers came up with the idea of executive agencies. I do not wholly disagree with that concept; it has some merit. However, I have always disagreed with the idea that the establishment of agencies would enable Ministers to evade their responsibility to the House. The right hon. Lady, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), their right hon. Friends and all the rest of them developed this neat difference between accountability and responsibility: they were responsible for policy but never for the operation of that policy.

To underline the fact that they were not responsible when things went wrong, Conservative Ministers would take out the basin and wash their hands. The right hon. Lady used to do that--as did the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean). When questions were asked about the operation of an agency, who replied to those queries? Was it the Secretary of State or the Minister of State? Not on your life. They simply acted as the postbox every time. Conservative Ministers treated written answers like pieces of stinking fish and said, "I refer to the letter that I have received from the chief executive."

Miss Widdecombe: The Home Secretary is in a time warp: he thinks that he is still in opposition and that all he must do is rehearse the sins, as he sees them, of the previous Government. He is now in government and we are asking him what he is doing about this mess. The right hon. Gentleman stands at the Dispatch Box recounting history, but we are interested in the present. Will he now return to the present and answer for himself?

Mr. Straw: I hope that the right hon. Lady feels better for having got that off her chest.

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Mr. Maclean rose--

Mr. Straw: I want to make progress but I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman because, outside the House, he is my friend.

Mr. Maclean: I am grateful to the Home Secretary. Will he tell the House who took the decision to issue passports to babies and children? Was it the Passport Agency or Ministers?

Mr. Straw: I did, on the recommendation of the agency. I shall explain exactly why I took that decision and from where the calls to do so came. I shall be absolutely delighted to do that.

Mr. Bercow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Straw: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman because I admire him greatly--I hope that my remark does not destroy his reputation on the right of the Tory party--and then I shall go on with my speech.

Mr. Bercow: I was worried to see the right hon. Gentleman in a state of such perturbation a few moments ago. He now seems to have calmed down somewhat. Will he give the House an assurance that, no matter how many families need to be compensated for the loss of their holidays, there will be no increase in passport application charges over and above those that might otherwise have taken place in the lifetime of this Parliament?

Mr. Straw: I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman the undertaking that families with children and individual applicants who have their holidays wrecked, or who cannot meet their travel date for any other reason, will receive full compensation. [Hon. Members: "Answer the question".] I am answering the hon. Gentleman; he knows that I answer his questions. The total amount of compensation is very small. There may have to be increases in the passport fee for the normal reasons to which he adverts, but there is no reason why any increase should result from the level of compensation.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Straw: No, I have given way more times than the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald did during her speech. I shall get on with my speech, but I will, of course, take more interventions should the occasion arise and if I decide to accept them.

As we all know, the Passport Agency is not providing its customers with the service that they and the House expect or that the agency has promised. I add my personal apologies to those of the chief executive of the agency and those of the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), to all those who have been inconvenienced by the inadequate standard of service, and especially to those whose holidays or business trips have been disrupted or cancelled.

Today, I want to put the situation into context and to set out why and how it has come to pass and what the agency and Ministers are doing, as quickly as possible, to resolve matters satisfactorily.

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First, I shall set out the context. The Passport Agency is one of the largest passport-issuing authorities in the world. It issues around 5 million passports a year, or an average of more than 400,000 a month. The work is highly seasonal, however. In a typical year, 50 per cent. of the work is compressed into a third of the year, with the peak months being the pre-summer holiday period of April to June.

Since its establishment as an agency in 1991, and until this year, the Passport Agency has had a successful track record in delivering high-quality public services. It is one of the few organisations that has three times won a charter mark for excellence, which it gained last year and in 1992 and 1995.

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