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Non-Home Office Police Forces
5. Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock): What plans he has to review the control, role, responsibility and powers of non-Home Office police forces. [89214]
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng): None. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is not persuaded that a need for such a review has been demonstrated, but he is ready to consider, with colleagues, as appropriate, any particular areas of concern.
Mr. Mackinlay: I appreciate the fact that I was sent, unsolicited, the brief that my hon. Friend has used to reply to me this afternoon. I am grateful, because I have had time to appreciate how inadequate that brief is. Will he confirm that it does not tell us that, when we were in opposition, Labour Members supported an amendment that I tabled to the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill to give powers, in extremis, to British Transport, Ministry of Defence and Royal Parks constabulary police officers, when action is needed just outside their jurisdiction and no Metropolitan police officer is available, or when such an officer needs support? Will he further confirm that the brief does not tell us that the senior police officers of those forces and their representative organisations think that there should be a change?
My hon. Friend's predecessor, now Secretary of State for Wales, was clued up to the issue. Will my hon. Friend tell his officials that it needs to be reconsidered, because within a stone's throw of here there are officers who have no more powers of arrest than you or I, Madam Speaker, and that situation puts them in jeopardy? Will he return the brief and give those officials two out of 10?
Mr. Boateng:
My hon. Friend makes his point with characteristic force. He brings an unprecedented historical knowledge to the role of the non-Home Office forces and I shall certainly take into account what he says. If he has any particular points that he would like to bring home to me in the privacy of my office, he is more than welcome to attend there.
Passports
6. Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): How many applications for passports are currently awaiting processing. [89215]
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): As of yesterday, the number of passport applications waiting to be processed was just under 500,000, a reduction of 6 per cent. on the previous week's figure. That is equivalent to just under four weeks' output. Passport offices in Belfast, Peterborough and Newport have cleared virtually all declared July travel dates. Liverpool passport office has cleared virtually all travel dates up to 19 July and expects to clear the remainder this week. Glasgow has cleared all travel dates up to 22 July.
Last week, the Passport Agency issued 166,000 passports, the highest weekly total on record. In addition, the Post Office estimates that between Wednesday and Saturday last week it extended 105,000 passports.
Mr. Heath:
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that information, but I have difficulty reconciling it with the admirably clear information that is provided by the Passport Agency on its website. It appears to indicate that four out of the six passport offices had an increased processing time two weeks ago and that Glasgow and Liverpool now have a 42-day turnaround for an average passport application, which would mean that an application made today would be processed by the end of September--long after the holiday period. Can the Home Secretary confirm whether those figures are correct? Can he reconcile them with the figures that he has given and explain when things will get better?
Mr. Straw:
I confess to the House that I have not consulted any part of the internet this morning: I prefer the accuracy of paper and ink--
Mr. David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden):
So much for electronic voting.
Mr. Straw:
I did not say that I would vote electronically, although I did in the Labour party's national executive committee elections and I enjoyed the experience. I shall write to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), but I do not think that there is any contradiction between the figures that I have given and those that he has cited. His figures represent the total delay in respect of each of the passport offices, but they are all processing first and foremost those applications with July travel dates. That, for the time being, necessarily means that those with later travel dates will be dealt with at a later time than otherwise would be the case.
I am clear, however, that--although the Passport Agency is not yet out of the woods--the changes that I put in place two weeks ago are making a difference. Output is now at record levels, and the changes in respect of the Post Office have considerably relieved the pressure of immediate applications. That is coinciding with what we expect to be the beginning of a seasonal downturn in the total number of applications.
Mr. Lawrie Quinn (Scarborough and Whitby):
Can my right hon. Friend confirm to the House that we do not
Mr. Straw:
My hon. Friend is quite right to complain about what has happened in the Passport Agency. I made the position clear to the House when I spoke about it two weeks ago and I apologised to those many people--not only the 132 who have been paid compensation, but the many thousands of others--who have been inconvenienced by the changes. What has happened is unacceptable and we are working hard to make sure that it does not happen again.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
Given that the right hon. Gentleman has already decreed that the £10 charge for a passport application in person should be waived in circumstances in which an individual is obliged through no fault of his own to make that application, will he now go one stage further, do the decent thing and agree that any such individual--obliged, often at short notice, to make a visit to a passport office--will be reimbursed, in full, his travel costs?
Mr. Straw:
We could not conceivably agree with that proposition, and I doubt very much whether Conservative Members, if they were in government, could either. Indeed, I am sure that they did not agree with that proposition when problems were encountered--they were not on the present scale but they existed--at the roll-out of the previous computer system in 1989.
The London office is a caller office, as some people require passports at very short notice. I have said previously that the £10 caller fee should be waived for people who apply for passports but who do not receive one in the 10-day target period and must then go to one of the caller offices around the country. I think that that is fair.
8. Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley):
When he expects the working party on electoral procedures to report; and what changes he proposes to make in the proxy voting system. [89217]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Howarth):
I am aware that the police are investigating a number of allegations of proxy voting abuse and it would be inappropriate for me to comment on any of them specifically.
The final report of the working party on electoral procedures, which I chair, is likely to include a number of recommendations on absent voting. However, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made clear in an earlier answer, we have to be convinced that any changes that are made will not undermine the integrity of the ballot.
Mr. Pike:
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, and I know that he and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary are aware that, in May, about 28 per cent. of the electorate in Burnley's Daneshouse ward claimed proxy votes. The working party report will soon be
Mr. Howarth:
My hon. Friend is right. This country has a long and proud tradition of free and fair elections without any form of corruption. Any changes that we make must uphold both the spirit and the letter of that tradition.
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire):
Although changes such as increased proxy voting, voting at the weekend or electronic voting may be introduced, is it not most important that people are on electoral registers? If we can resolve the problem of the 3 million or 4 million people missing from electoral registers, we can move on to consider the other matters that have been raised. Does my hon. Friend agree that the question of electoral registers should be given priority consideration?
Mr. Howarth:
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has worked for a number of years to raise awareness of the problem of the number of people who do not appear on electoral registers. I assure him that we have studied the matter very carefully. An announcement will be made about it later this week.
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