Contributions
1,459 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsJust to be clear, a range of private contractors are already involved in the passport process. The bit that is not undertaken by a private contractor is the decision itself. The…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsIt is quite interesting to hear all the claims of how predictable all this was. I am struggling to remember the number of times anyone on the shadow Front Bench predicted any of…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsPrior to the pandemic, HM Passport Office routinely processed approximately 7 million passports each year. Over the last two years the necessary restrictions on international…27 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office BacklogsPassport applications would not usually be linked together as such. It is not like applying for a travel visa, for example, when a family will travel together. This document…27 Apr 2022HANSARDDraft Licensing Act 2003 (Platinum Jubilee Licensing Hours) Order 2022I thank the tourist boards in Halifax, Rossendale and Darwen, and Harrogate and Knaresborough, for their contribution to this debate. While we are on that subject, of course the…25 Apr 2022HANSARDDraft Licensing Act 2003 (Platinum Jubilee Licensing Hours) Order 2022I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Licensing Act 2003 (Platinum Jubilee Licensing Hours) Order 2022. It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your…25 Apr 2022HANSARDOperation Pitting EvacueesI am very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss those women’s cases. Of course, through the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme we are working with groups such as the UNHCR to…25 Apr 2022HANSARDOperation Pitting EvacueesI am delighted to hear that housing is available in the highlands to support these people. We would be keen for them to make their new home in the highlands, which is a fantastic…25 Apr 2022HANSARDOperation Pitting EvacueesWe continue to support those who were evacuated under Operation Pitting—the UK’s largest evacuation operation in some decades—in particular with the search for permanent…25 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office: Service Standard TimesI thank my hon. Friend for his comments. Early in January, we were processing about 60,000 passports a week, and by mid-March we had nearly trebled or even quadrupled the output…25 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office: Service Standard TimesI go back to the fact that we dealt with 1 million passport applications last month alone. To put that in context, we usually deal with 7 million in a whole year. Where there are…25 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office: Service Standard TimesI would just point out that between January and March, over 90% of cases were completed within six weeks, but we advise people to allow up to 10 weeks for their application.…25 Apr 2022HANSARDHM Passport Office: Service Standard TimesDuring the pandemic period, over 5 million people delayed applying for a British passport. This has led to unprecedented passport demand. To meet this, we have increased output to…25 Apr 2022HANSARD Ukraine Refugee VisasFirst, I am not sure what taking time out to set up another visa scheme would deliver in this context, compared with the refinements to the process that we already have in place.…31 Mar 2022HANSARD Ukraine Refugee VisasAbsolutely. The move to divert the vast majority of people applying to both these schemes away from visa application and the need to have a formally printed vignette, which is…31 Mar 2022HANSARD Ukraine Refugee VisasThe conflict in Ukraine continues to shock the world. Putin’s invasion is deplorable and he must fail. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people at this…31 Mar 2022HANSARD Ukraine Refugee VisasWe would paint cases involving children as having safeguarding checks rather than security checks, which were touched on in another context earlier today. In terms of our visa…31 Mar 2022HANSARD Ukraine Refugee VisasThat is a fair point about updating people. Certainly people would be contacted if there was something that was needed from them, rather than us conducting the checks he would…31 Mar 2022HANSARD Ukraine Refugee VisasAs we have touched on, in total we have already issued more than 27,000 visas across the two schemes. We have touched on how the Homes for Ukraine scheme is accelerating the…31 Mar 2022HANSARD Ukraine Refugee VisasI am very happy to do so if the hon. Lady gives me the details after this session.31 Mar 2022