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John Robertson (Glasgow, Anniesland) (Lab): I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Ms Anderson, and I look forward to our deliberations today.
I want to draw attention to an error in the report of the second sitting. I shall not do so in a point of order, but just slip it in at the beginning of my speech, unlike the hon. Member for Woking. The report said that I had tabled amendment No. 115, but it was, as all Committee members will remember, amendment No. 155. I say that today because we have a lot more time
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than we had on Tuesday, when I spoke rather quickly, which is probably why the Hansard people had difficulty recognising the accent and realising what the number was. I hope that, with your indulgence, Ms Anderson, I have put the record straight.
I also congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam on his amendments, with which I have more than a little sympathy. These are probably the first amendments that he has tabled that are not intended to wreck the Bill and instead offer something constructive, so I welcome them.
I wish to make some points that probably enhance the hon. Gentleman's argument in dealing with people who have, or could have, problems putting themselves on the register and getting their biometrics in the register. I tabled the amendment because of information given to me by Royal National Institute of the Blind, which is more than a little experienced with people who are disabled either physically or in terms of sight. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is talking with the RNIB, because he told me so in his reply to my previous contribution, and I assume that he will continue to talk to it about some of the points that I am about to make.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam talked about assistance with transport and related costs. One of the points that the RNIB made very well to me was that in 59 per cent. of cases—about 10 million people—assistance with transport was required for people going on any long journeys and was sometimes needed on short journeys, because part of the problem is with pedestrian areas, not just the transport.
I ask the Minister to look at that, because if, as the hon. Gentleman says, distance comes into play, it will be the distance for not only one person, but two. That makes a good argument and a fair case for allowing visits to Orkney and Shetland, for example, which is represented by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, who is a friend. There should be a portable centre that could go round not just the rural areas, but those such as my constituency, Glasgow, Anniesland, where there is a high concentration of elderly who cannot get about and would find it very difficult, intimidating and scary to get into the centre of Glasgow.
On cost relating to passports, it should also be remembered that people can post their passport with a cheque and documents. They do not have to go further than the local post box. That could be done for them by a friend. Will the Minister consider that?
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I should like the Minister to go into a little more detail other than simply saying that he is discussing matters with the RNIB. I want more meat on the bones. Will he say that he will examine such issues? I do not want it to be just a matter of talk. By the time that the Bill receives Royal Assent, I want people such as the elderly and the disabled and, for that matter, those in rural areas, to be taken care of and not feel as they do in many cases that no one really cares about them.
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Mr. Browne: I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Anniesland (John Robertson) that we are already in contact with Dr. John Gill, the chief scientist at the RNIB. Our communication at present is principally about card design, but we are discussing with the RNIB all the legitimate issues raised by my hon. Friend, which are relevant to people with disabilities. We will, of course, communicate with other organisations that represent such people.
As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam said, the agency will need to conform to the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 that have been enhanced significantly during the Government's term of office. It is an achievement of which I, as a Minister, am immensely proud, and I wish us to conform to its standards.
The provision should be understood in the context that we have already made the decision that all first-time applicants from 2006-07 will have to make a personal appointment. First-time applicants for passports will not be able to apply by post, for a good and sensible reason, in my view. As the Minister responsible for that decision, I would say that, wouldn't I?
Such a process will enhance the security for passports. It will ensure that there is no risk of passports being issued to people with a false identity. We will require first-time applicants to apply in person. That is a consequence of the provision. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam referred to it earlier and may have given the impression to members of the Committee that the decision to expand the UK Passport Service offices was made to accommodate identity cards. It was not. No final decision has been made about the number of front offices that will be needed for the in-person passport nor has a decision been made whether they will be stand alone, separate offices or whether we will take advantage of a network of Government or other agency offices that already exist. There is good sense in using existing networks in accessible offices in convenient spots to undertake such work, if that can be done economically.
The UK Passport Service's research into travel showed that most people who currently apply in person for a passport travel about 25 miles. On the basis of that research and other information, early signs suggest that between 70 and 100 offices may be needed to offer the appropriate opportunity to first-time passport applicants to attend in person. That is a different matter, but that network will be in place for the new agency that is being created to deliver the identity card, which includes the UK Passport Service and others.
Mr. Curry: It is important to understand how the scheme will work in practice, so it would be helpful if the Minister spelled out what we now call a narrative, in the political language of the time. I wonder if I have understood him right. I will give an illustration of what might happen, but I will not ask him to be clear on the issue. In Skipton there is a modern Jobcentre Plus, or social security office, which is well equipped with modern communications. That is the sort of standing
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establishment that could well be a front office for the UK Passport Service for the purposes that we are discussing.
Mr. Browne: The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. I had responsibility for Jobcentre Plus for about a year when I was Minister for Work. The roll-out of the new Jobcentre Plus offices happened mostly during that time, although it is not yet completed; we were about halfway there when I moved to my present job. I am immensely pleased with how that agency has delivered a service to the public for some years now, and how it has developed open and friendly offices that are working very well.
As the right hon. Gentleman says, the offices have good, sophisticated networks of communication, and are also becoming known as established places in communities where people can go for advice. It will not surprise the right hon. Gentleman to hear that, when investment of £1.2 billion or more was being made in those offices, discussions were going on across Government about using them not just for delivery of advice on employment, training and benefits, but for other purposes, too. As Minister with responsibility for immigration and asylum, I expect that the executives of the UK Passport Service will report to me on the suitability of just such a network of offices as a possible place for enrolment centres for passports and, in due course, identity cards. The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right to say that that is the sort of network of which we should take advantage.
Mr. Curry: To continue with the analogies, we on the Public Accounts Committee are constantly discussing the number of no-shows for, for example, hospital and general practitioner appointments. If we are to use an appointment system, the Minister needs to build into it assumptions about the propensity of people not to show up, even when it is clearly in their interests to do so.
Mr. Browne: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his common-sense advice. I am aware of that and, from the point of view of the making the best use of public money, we will be conscious of that fact. He will bear in mind, of course, that the UK Passport Service already has significant experience of an appointment system, although in a much more concentrated fashion. I recently had to attend at the Victoria office because I had a transaction to make, so I know from experience that the system works very well. It allowed me to be dealt with within a window of about 20 minutes. I have to say, I was surprised by how well it worked, given the amount of traffic going through the office. So, that is an experience to draw on.
The UK Passport Service conducted the biometrics trial. There are two or three important points to make about that. First, the trial included 10,000 people and revealed a significant amount of information, although not yet enough for us to be absolutely certain how the enrolment system should work. However, the trial has informed further deliberations. Also, the trial required biometric enrolment from 700 disabled people so that we could do just what hon. Members are encouraging me to do: identify the problems with the
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process for disabled people. When we move to the much bigger trial, which will involve in excess of 1 million people, a substantial proportion of those people will have to be disabled.
My final point about the passport biometrics trial is that part of that trial involved a mobile enrolment unit, which was put in this very building—in the car park of the Palace of Westminster—so that hon. Members could go and experience the process. That way, their understanding of it would be informed by their experience. That has happened in various locations, including some rural locations, so that the information and evidence that will inform the decisions that need to be made could be gathered. I trust that my answer has assured Committee members that the Government have thought about such issues, and that we were on to them before we started discussing the amendments. I suspect that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Anniesland appreciate that.
I shall deal with the amendments quickly, given that I have, broadly, responded with the reassurance that such issues are priorities for the Government in planning the enrolment process. The intention of amendments Nos. 81 and 99 is to place a requirement on the Secretary of State to make provision for local facilities and for home visits for people unfit to travel to satisfy the application requirements of clause 5 and the notification requirements of clause 12. Amendment No. 154 would require an order to set out
''the assistance available with transportation arrangements and costs to vulnerable or disabled individuals required to make an application.''
As I hope has been made clear, there is a recognition that there are groups with particular needs, and we are considering developing ways to meet those needs as we design the system. We are proposing that enrolment centres should be located around the UK. It is intended that they should be local and convenient to everyone, but we do not need to write that into the Bill, partly because the definition of ''local'' is unhelpful; it does not fit with the different travel patterns for which we need to cater. People regularly travel to work; it may be more convenient to place enrolment centres there. Such considerations are just as important as where a home is situated; being local to residence is not necessarily that helpful.
We also need to balance such decisions against the cost of establishing a centre without a large enough catchment area to be economic. It is too early to say what that might be, although we have some information to work with and we will know about the early experience of the new UK Passport Service locations.
Other Government offices, including Jobcentre Plus offices, do not have a legal requirement to provide local offices, but they do so because that makes sense for their users and themselves. I recollect that as we rolled out Jobcentre Plus, we had continuing discussions with Members of Parliament about their constituencies and the best configuration of offices—whether a full Jobcentre Plus office was needed or whether other Government or local authority offices could provide the service. That degree of flexibility
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needs to be kept, and what happened with Jobcentre Plus is a good example of how such flexibility could benefit the provision of the service.
On the question of registering people through home visits, we are conscious that such enrolment must be convenient. We are making provision to register people who live in remote areas or are unfit to travel. However, it would not be appropriate to write a duty to provide such visits into the Bill, as they are one of a range of options that we are considering. Registering through home visits raises security issues that would need to be overcome.
I have already alluded to another option: mobile enrolment centres, which we recently tested as part of the biometrics trial.
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