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5.57 pm
Mr. Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne): I am delighted to participate in the debate and it is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane). This is very much a new Labour issue, although I cannot imagine the average new Labour person, of whom he is a prime example, having such a problem. They all have well-thumbed passports, as I am sure he does. He was good enough to share with us a number of aliases and showed us several cards as well as a riveting array of electronic and other equipment, which he carries about his person. No doubt all that will get him out of a tight corner when necessary--he is a James Bond figure in that respect.
Not all our constituents, and not all the hon. Gentleman's constituents, spend their lives jetting backwards and forwards between this country and Geneva, occasionally being forced to "de-plane" in unpleasant parts of the world other than Geneva. We can imagine the strain that that puts on him and people of his persuasion. As we all know, he is never happier than when travelling to other countries to explain that the Prime Minister loves the euro and that people should not believe everything they read in the English newspapers.
The Home Secretary was uncharacteristically churlish today when trying to explain his role and that of other Ministers in this debacle. He sometimes has to play on a sticky wicket, and there are not many stickier than this particular wicket, but in the past he has come to the House with a certain grace, a certain style and good-humoured willingness to shrug his shoulders and take the blame, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) put it. Today, he came out swinging and took refuge in a great deal of unnecessary and painfully transparent bluster to try to cover over the appalling state of affairs at the Passport Agency.
We must not forget that there are some human stories behind today's debate. Hardly a Member cannot have been contacted by constituents who are sometimes in a state of near panic, and not simply because they want to go on holiday--although for most people in this country, unlike the hon. Member for Rotherham and his new Labour chums, foreign travel is a relatively rare event. They look forward to it throughout the year, save up for it and, in many instances, organise it a long time in advance.
Despite what the hon. Gentleman suggested at one point, we are not talking about irresponsible people who have waited until the last moment to apply for their passports. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) said, such people may have booked their holidays many months in advance, and also applied for passports in good time. They then have the galling experience of finding that their cheques have been cashed almost instantly by an otherwise overwhelmed organisation--there is clearly no problem of staff shortage in the section that deals with the cashing of cheques on behalf of the Passport Agency--only for months to go by without a passport appearing.
Only the other day, a lady constituent rang my office. She was really quite distressed. She had applied for a passport for her daughter, who was born in January last year. This is an example of the effects of the new rule that is apparently causing so much of the backlog. She applied in late April; they were going on holiday in the middle of July. I do not think it unreasonable to apply for a passport in April if one knows that one is going on holiday in mid-July.
That lady had heard nothing. She had sent a recorded letter, and had still heard nothing. She had tried telephoning, without success. I think we have heard that some 1.2 million such unsuccessful telephone calls have been made. She rang me in desperation, asking if there was anything I could do. I am pleased to say that, with considerable help from officials, I was able to solve the problem. My constituent has received a passport for her very young daughter, and the family will be able to go on holiday as planned.
Two things make me uneasy, however. The first is the fact that the family had to go through all that simply to obtain a passport. Secondly, as I said earlier, it makes me slightly uneasy when a Member of Parliament, whatever his party, has to become involved in situations such as this--in what ought to be a mundane and purely administrative function. What ought to happen is this: people should send in the form and the money, and, given that everything is in order, the passport should be delivered within a few days. In fairness, the Home Secretary accepts that that is what ought to happen, and he tells us that it is what will happen in due course, when the backlog has been dealt with.
What is worrying is that, for every person in such circumstances who thinks of contacting me, there may be any number in my constituency--and in other hon. Members' constituencies--who have not thought of contacting their Member of Parliament. Others may have thought, as people sometimes do, "I cannot bother my MP about something like this." And how many others have tried to contact MPs who are busy or unavailable, and could not help them?
Mr. Bercow:
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Will he also reflect on the position of those who do not approach their MP, but make representations to the authorities, and are enjoined to pay a special and unscheduled visit to the nearest office--and, having done so, incur a considerable cost? Is it not unfair that people who have to make such visits--through no fault of their own--and who may be of modest means should suffer financially as a consequence?
Mr. Waterson:
My hon. Friend also makes a powerful point, which had not occurred to me thus far. It is said that compensation is available to those whose holidays are ruined as a result of such ineptitude, but what about those who take a day off work and spend that day queuing up at the passport office? The Minister may not have had a chance to think about that, but he may be able to deal with it when he winds up the debate. Is there any thought of compensating those who, having taken time off work, incur expenses such as the cost of travelling from one end of the country to the other, because the queues at Liverpool have allegedly disappeared and they think that they would do better to try their luck there?
We are not talking about people like the hon. Member for Rotherham. We are talking about instances in which, if people take a day off work, someone notices, it makes a difference, and they must make up for it in some way. Their employers may expect them to work an extra day in lieu, or to take a cut in pay. That is a serious situation for people who may have pushed their family budgets to the limit in order to afford a holiday in the first place.
A parallel problem is that of people who have handed their passports to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, for which the Under-Secretary is also responsible. I received a letter from a constituent about this. It concerned a couple--the wife is Slovakian--who deposited their passports with the Home Office in October 1998. My constituent finally got around to writing to me in February this year, saying that the couple had heard absolutely nothing. The letter says:
Mr. Waterson:
I am at the moment, but I am describing a parallel problem. If the Minister will allow me, I shall pull all the threads together towards the end of my speech.
My constituent wrote:
On, I think, 24 June we were told that the number of outstanding applications had more than doubled, to more than half a million. We know of instances in which people have waited for more than 12 weeks for passports. As we
have heard, the service has promised that applications involving no problems will be dealt with in 10 days.That applies to straightforward, properly completed applications. I do not think that anyone is suggesting that mistakes or inaccuracies would not quite reasonably cause delays. We have also heard that, in 1997-98, more than 200,000 fewer passports were issued than in the previous year. Given that those figures were calculated before the present crisis, I wonder how accurate they are.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald said in her speech, the real problem has been caused by the fact that two events are happening at the same time. One is the introduction of a new computer system, which is one of the problems that bedevilled the IND; the other is the introduction of the new rules governing children's passports. There is a substantial view--out there in the real world, rather than on the planet Straw--that it is absurd to go through the pantomime of shoving an almost newborn baby into one of those automatic booths, and getting out of the way just in time for the photograph, by which point the baby has slumped on the chair and all that there is a shot of the background. The other point has been made powerfully more than once in the debate. I think that it was Churchill who said that all babies looked the same and they all looked like him, but babies and young children change their looks fast. We are told that the passports will be valid for five years, rather than the usual 10, but, again, in five years, a small child can change its appearance markedly.
Lord Williams of Mostyn, with breathtaking understatement, said that
"You cannot ring the Home Office and they have not even had an acknowledgement that their matter is being dealt with and that the Passports have arrived."
Such examples are legion. Another constituent contacted me only this month. Again, the wife was a foreign national, whose original visa had expired. The couple had contacted the Home Office in the usual way, leaving plenty oftime. The Home Office replied apologising for the inconvenience--which is at least a step forward--and mentioning renovation works. It added the following galling sentence:
"Please do not hesitate to telephone the above number if you need assistance."
Not unreasonably, my constituent thought, "I think I will telephone that number and tell them that I need some assistance." He told me in the letter that he had spent from 8.59 am until 4.5 pm on the day before he wrote to me trying to reach the Home Office. The letter states:
"All day I received either the engaged tone or . . . recorded message."
It continues:
"These people are destroying our lives.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien):
I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman's speech, but I am a little confused. Is he talking about the IND or the UKPA? Am I right in thinking that he is talking about the IND?
We are two legally married people from our Commonwealth. I am and always have been a British citizen."
"I am battling, and winning, my fight with Brain Cancer. I just want a peaceful life living with my wife in my country."
Those are just examples that I pulled out of my mailbag for the purpose of today's debate, but each represents a potential human tragedy. Certainly these are individuals who deserve better, but are not receiving the service that they should be receiving.
"productivity from the new system has been lower than expected, and arrears of work have built up."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 June 1999; Vol. 602, c. 56.]
He went on to talk about "teething problems". I can do no better than quote from that old Labour organ,The Guardian, whose home affairs editor, Alan Travis, said at the beginning of the month about the current problem:
"It comes hard on the heels of the administrative breakdown in the asylum and immigration system. Both crises have been caused by the botched installation of new computer systems".
The great rule in life--and, above all, in politics--is, "When you are in a hole, stop digging", but that is another piece of common sense that seems to be lost on Home Office Ministers. One of the reasons that has been given for the problem is seasonal demand; as someone on the radio said this morning, it is similar to the reason that was given by British Rail for train delays: the wrong kind of snow had fallen. All these clever people, officials and Ministers, have concluded that the British public's irrational and unreasonable desire to have passports, so that they can go on their summer holidays is behind all the problems.
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