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6.28 pm
Mr. Robert Syms (Poole): The Home Secretary was gracious enough to recognise that the Passport Agency has done a reasonable job since being set up as an executive agency in 1991, With the possible exception of a bit of a blip when temporary passports were abolished, it has by and large delivered a reasonable service. We all know that, when people turn up for passports at the last moment, it occasionally leads to queueing, but in general the Passport Agency has not been a political issue.
We are today discussing whether the current position was predictable. The computer contract was signed in July 1997--nearly two years ago. Those of us who have had any dealings with high technology know that things never go to plan: there are often difficulties, and more staff are needed. It is not therefore unreasonable to expect that things might slip.
We have been told that the changes in respect of passports for children have led to additional difficulties. The announcement about those changes was made last summer, and they were implemented in October. It did not happen yesterday or a few weeks ago--the decision was taken 12 months ago. So what has happened is that two policy decisions have come together and caused chaos.
It is clear that responsibility for that must lie with Home Office Ministers. I appreciate that the Home Office has to wrestle with many difficult issues, but in this case responsibility is clear. We have been told that an action plan was set up at the end of March. That was 10 or 12 weeks ago. We should be told today what was agreed at that stage; what targets were set; why they have not been fulfilled; and why we still have queues and newspaper headlines.
We have heard of about 93 people missing their holiday who may apply for compensation. What about those who have had to take time off work or travel many miles in order to get a passport? Is there a means by which they can be compensated?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) referred to security arrangements. An article in The Daily Telegraph in March reported that security arrangements may have been relaxed. That point should be answered.
I thank the House for listening to those brief words in this important debate.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury):
The debate has reflected our constituents' anger and frustration at the fact that a part of government which, for many years, gave what hon. Members on both sides of the House agree was a first-class service, has failed dismally to meet the targets that have been set for it. The debate has also reflected the growing anger at the fact that Home Office Ministers have failed to come up with solutions to a crisis that should have been obvious to them for many weeks and months.
It was something of a consolation to us to hear the Home Secretary admit that the service provided by the agency was not what the public deserved, and was not up to the standard that the agency and Ministers had repeatedly promised it would maintain. Only the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), who is no longer present, disbelieves the experience of our constituents as reported to us day by day and week by week. Lest the hon. Gentleman or any of his hon. Friends remain in doubt, I emphasise that the story of this crisis is still being told in the Government's own statistics. The truth is that, despite all the emergency packages, action plans, apologies and good will from the Government Front Bench, matters are still getting worse rather than better.
I discovered from a written answer given to me by the Minister this afternoon that the backlog of passport applications waiting to be determined, which a fortnight ago stood at the already scandalously high total of 531,000, has now, a week later, risen to no fewer than 565,000.
Much the same record applies to telephone calls to the agency. I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan). The Home Secretary told us that the Passport Agency received approximately 1.5 million calls in May. We know from written answers that 1.1 million callers got through not to a member of staff but to a recorded message informing them that all lines were busy. That means that barely one quarter of all calls to the Passport Agency are being answered.
In those circumstances, the Secretary of State must forgive us if we are somewhat cautious about accepting the travel advice and assurances that he has offered. He said that people should apply at least one month in advance, but most passport offices are taking almost two months to process routine applications. The truth is that people do not believe and trust the Government's assurances because they have been let down so badly over the past six to 12 months.
I hope that the Minister will not only respond to concerns such as those expressed by my hon. Friendsthe Members for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) and by the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) but will give specific answers on a number of points. What is the Government's policy towards the general extension of passports by two years? Do they intend to develop that procedure further in the next few weeks to overcome the present crisis? Could those extensions include passports on which the names of children are listed? Will the Minister consider the problem of personal callers? Will he waive the £10 extra fee charged to personal callers when they have to come to the Passport Agency in person out of sheer desperation?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) began the debate by making the point that we have had no proper or detailed explanation from the ministerial team of how this crisis arose in the first place. From the way in which the Home Secretary responded, one might have thought that the crisis was down to something beyond ministerial control: like the weather, it had to be endured rather than tackled. The truth is that in July 1997--two years ago--Ministers
approved the contract and timetable for computerisation. In April 1998, Ministers announced that all children should be required to hold their own passports. Ministers decided that both those innovations should be introduced at once. If, for the reasons that Ministers have given, it was necessary to introduce both at once, why did they engage in such glaringly inadequate planning for such drastic innovations in the passport service?
The Home Secretary knew of the changes and had made an assessment of their likely impact when he approved the agency's business plan for 1998-99, which says:
So conscious were Ministers of the fact that the changes were bound to have a damaging impact on the Passport Agency that they did something that the Home Secretary notably omitted to tell us about in his speech: they explicitly softened the agency's efficiency target for 1998-99 to allow it to cope with the problems that Ministers expected to arise as a result of computerisation.
Despite all that, on 21 July 1998, the Minister said that, although he anticipated difficulties, he nevertheless expected the agency
In summer 1998, the situation was already a good deal worse than 12 months previously. At the time when the Minister made his promise about high standards of service throughout the year, he already knew--or at least he ought to have known--that processing times for applications were significantly longer than in the same period in 1997. Even before computerisation and before the introduction of children's passports, the delays were getting worse.
Last winter, there was a huge rise in the number of applications outstanding at the end of each successive month--from 116,000 in November to 121,000 in December; 167,000 in January; and 280,000 in February, which is when one expects, on the basis of historical experience, that the agency should be in the slack period of its seasonal work flow.
It is no good Ministers' saying, as some anonymous spin doctors have done in recent days, that this problem is all to do with the agency; that they were never told and did not know about it; in other words, "It wasn't me guv." Paragraph 4.13 of the agency's corporate plan says that forecasts of demand for passports will be subject to--
Mr. Mike O'Brien:
It is the hon. Gentleman's first outing on the Front Bench. He said that spin doctors are trying to shift responsibility. Can he justify that statement?
Mr. Lidington:
If the Minister had picked up any one of a number of newspapers in the past week--and newspapers, as we know, are the Government's usual way of communicating with Parliament and the country--he would have seen many references to the sort of thing that I have described.
6.30 pm
"The major challenge for the Agency in 1998/99 will be the successful management of the project to introduce these new passport issuing arrangements . . . whilst maintaining service standards in dealing with a continuing high volume of passport applications."
Ministers set the performance targets for the Passport Agency, presumably taking account of the impact of the policy changes that they had decided and had introduced. The Home Secretary set the 10-day turnround target for handling postal applications, and the targets for answering telephone calls and for dealing with personal callers.
"to maintain a high standard of service throughout the year."--[Official Report, 21 July 1998; Vol. 316, c. 435.]
That was the expectation in July last year. During the 12 months that have elapsed since then, there have been many occasions on which the alarm bells in the Home Office ought to have been ringing loud enough to awaken even this team of Ministers from their slumbers.
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