Contributions
1,459 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI am happy to have a conversation with the hon. Gentleman after the UQ.27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI am very happy to. As I have touched on, we accept that the performance of the telephone lines is not acceptable, and we are making moves to change that, but I am happy to pick…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI have already spoken about the involvement of private companies, the exception being the decision that is made, for pretty obvious reasons, by directly employed Home Office…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsWhile I do not agree with all the hon. Gentleman’s comments, he makes a fair point about the MP hotline, which certainly does need to be better. I am not going to hide from the…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsAs I said, we have an additional 500 staff and we are in the process of recruiting another 700. We let people know that the service standard was being pushed out to 10 weeks last…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsThe hon. Gentleman speaks powerfully and well on this point. I am happy to engage with our colleagues in Government. As long as the passport is valid, it can be used to come back…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsAs I said, where people have a compassionate and compelling reason to travel, such as having been advised that a loved one is entering their final days, then that will be…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsPerhaps I will put my answer to that one in the post.27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsFirst, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments about passport office staff. As he knows, a large number of Home Office staff are based in Liverpool—we have fantastic staff in…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsThe Government fully recognise the scale of the issue. As I said, there are 5 million unrenewed passports and we expect 2.5 million of them to be renewed, and that is on top of…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsAs I have already said, the performance of the advice line is unacceptable and needs to change. I know that the relevant director general at the Home Office is meeting with the…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI will happily relay that to the Department for Transport, because obviously we are keen that airlines should apply the rules correctly. Those are not our rules on entry; they are…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI thank my hon. Friend for those comments. The efforts of the team at the Peterborough passport office are certainly much appreciated. As I have touched on several times, we saw…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI am very sorry to hear of the death in that family. Absolutely, given the circumstances of travel, I am happy to liaise with the hon. Member and see if we can get the application…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsClearly, there were times over the past couple of years when people were working from home. I have to say that for things such as document scanning, the teams are in the office. A…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI am disappointed to hear the hon. Gentleman’s comments and the tone of them. We have not been nonchalant. Although others have not shown too much interest until now, the…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. We have increased the capacity of the counter service, which is similarly seeing much-increased demand. We certainly accept the…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsAs we have touched on, we are seeing an unprecedented level of demand: we would normally process 7 million applications in an entire year and did 1 million last month alone. That…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsThat will be partly through contact with the Passport Office, which is why we are moving to deal with the unacceptable issues in relation to the advice line. Some people come…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsI start on a point of consensus by thanking the many staff who are working hard and saw a record output last month. It was 13% higher than the previous record, so we are talking…27 Apr 2022