HC Deb 12 July 1999 vol 335 cc9-11
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 expect to see this problem arise again? Can he also confirm to the hard-pressed staff in the offices in my constituency that they will no longer be faced with up to 30 callers a day trying to sort out their problems?

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.