Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Geoffrey Robinson

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

3. What steps he is taking to help households with their energy bills.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

5. What steps he is taking to help households with their energy bills.

Passport Applications

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Geoffrey Robinson

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I know that my right hon. Friend’s Committee looked at these issues yesterday. I understand the reasons behind that decision—Ministers are concerned about consistency and security—but we need to review whether those are concerns in all cases. We also need to review the procedures that have been used to repatriate the process, because they have not worked, in my view. There were discussions yesterday and today about the issue, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) said, the passport website still has a three-week web promise for passport delivery. I would like to know from the Minister whether that is still the norm for delivery of passports. Will the Minister commit today to maintaining the three-week delivery time? The Passport Office chief executive has said that we had a 16% under-forecast of demand. We initially thought that the extra demand was 350,000 applications, but the chief executive confirmed yesterday—in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)—that it is 400,000. The Passport Office has now ordered an independent review of forecasting. Yesterday, the chief executive said that 493,289 passport applications were “in progress”. The Home Office does not use the words “delay” or “backlog”: everything is “work in progress”.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) tested the Home Secretary on the figures before the House today. The Home Secretary said that applications this year are 3.3 million, up from 2.95 million last year—an increase of 350,000. She also said that 6% of the 3.3 million applications were from overseas, and that is 200,000 applications. Last year, those 200,000 applications were dealt with by the Foreign Office, so—as my right hon. Friend said—200,000 of the 350,000 increase came from overseas. I hope that the Minister will tell us what has caused the increase in demand.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) asked that question. Is it because of the repatriation of dealing with overseas residents’ passports—about which my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) asked pertinent questions at the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing—or is it because of the closure of offices at home, a point raised my hon. Friends the Members for Newport West (Paul Flynn), for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark)? Is it because, even today, there are not sufficient staff to deal with current needs, or is it because, in some twilight world—as the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) said—the bright economic future has led people to book their holidays early? Only yesterday, the annual figures showed that inflation outstripped wages yet again. People’s earnings are not keeping pace with inflation.

[Mr Robinson]

I agree with every word my right hon. Friend says. We have had no explanation from the Government on what has caused this crisis. It can only be incompetence at the top, lack of ministerial direction and attention, and the organisation of the HMPO, which the Select Committee earlier this week exposed as being very inadequate.

[Mr Hanson]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. I also welcome the Home Secretary’s apology, but an apology is not enough. We need a clear exposition on what has caused this problem. A range of points have been put forward today, but we have had no clarity from the Government.

The human cost of this crisis was exposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman). May I just note in passing that he celebrates 44 years in the House today? The human cost was also mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Airdrie and Shotts and for Cardiff South and Penarth. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) looked at problems relating particularly to India, and the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) accepted that there are challenges in the system.

I put the problem down to a failure to plan. The HMPO annual report last year stated that there would be approximately 350,000 additional customers worldwide annually, so why did the Minister not act? We knew the Foreign Office changes were being introduced. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran said that overtime has increased. We heard about the January rise. We heard that on 23 May extra staff were deployed. In an Adjournment debate secured in June by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West, the Minister said:

“HMPO will have deployed 250 additional passport examination staff”—[Official Report, 10 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 524.]

by the end of June. If this was a problem in January, why is that the case? The issues of training and recruitment could all have been anticipated by the Government. What has been the impact of moving fraud staff and others on to passports? Confidence in the measures announced by the Home Secretary has not been clear from Members here today.

In the one minute I have left I will turn to compensation. Will the Minister tell me, either today or at a future date, how many extra payments have been made by people to ensure they receive their passports on time? Why is the offer applicable only from Thursday to a limited section of people? Will the Minister commit himself to looking at the number of people who have been hit by the extra charge for fast-tracking and say whether he will repay them? Will he look at the issue of the date, rather than the date of travel, for the reasons set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts?

It is clear that the problem was known. It is clear that inadequate action was taken. It is clear that there is still a problem now. It is clear that Ministers were not on top of the job and not on top of their work. It is clear that they failed the public who pay for this service. The Minister probably needs to take a holiday. Will he take it after he has sorted out everybody else’s passport? Will he ensure that the Home Office does what our constituents are paying it to do: to deliver a quality service on time and on budget to ensure that people are able to take their business trips and enjoy their hard-earned holidays?

Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Geoffrey Robinson

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

At the beginning of my speech, I said that we had a deficit reduction plan at the last election. When I was a Minister at the Home Office in the previous Government, we forwarded plans for £1.5 billion-worth of expenditure cuts. The Conservative-led Government are cutting £2.5 billion in that Department, which is why we are losing police officers and police community support officers, and why I fear that crime will go up. There was a plan. There were certainly issues that we had to tackle, and we will tackle them. The way in which the Government propose to tackle the deficit goes too far, too fast and too deep. It is being done in an unfair way that hits the poorest people hardest, and it will damage the long-term business interests of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree not only that the coalition Government’s policies will deflate the economy, but that they are missing their own deficit reduction targets? They are so far from meeting them that they will have to borrow £46 billion more than it forecast, although they have not yet corrected the figure.

[Mr Hanson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The Conservative-Liberal Government are missing their borrowing targets and will have to increase borrowing by £46 billion because unemployment will rise over the next year and because we have lower growth. There is lower growth, in part, because of a lack of confidence, which has happened, in part, because of the rise in value added tax. It is an unfair tax that hits the poorest people hardest.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Geoffrey Robinson

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend touches on the great steps made under the previous Government to alleviate child poverty. Was he by any chance present during Prime Minister’s Question Time today, when the Prime Minister made it clear that we had reached the end of the road in terms of taxation measures to achieve that? In particular, he said that he was absolutely against further redistributive measures. The proposals, which are separate from straightforward taxation measures, will take further steps to aggravate, not alleviate, child poverty.

[Mr Hanson]

The Minister has an opportunity to clarify the Government’s approach to the provision of child care. That is clearly linked to clause 35, because the Labour Government’s original proposals were designed to meet the objectives that my hon. Friend has indicated. That point is made, and I want the Minister to clarify his approach to child poverty and how the Government propose to fund child care places for two-year-olds.

Agencies and organisations outside the House have made a range of comments on clause 35. It is worth giving the Minister an opportunity to respond to them, and I hope that he will offer some reassurance. Some of the comments also relate to the accompanying schedule. I appreciate that the Committee is not considering that now, but it is very much linked to the clause.

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, which, as the Minister will know, is an initiative of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, has raised with me some real concerns about clause 35 and schedule 8. It is concerned about the complex interactions of tax-free vouchers with tax credits and child care cost support, the dynamics of which it believes changed again after 6 April 2011. It is important that the Minister responds to its concern about the poor channels of advice for employees and employers about the implementation of the scheme proposed under clause 35.

The group believes that there may have been errors—under the previous Government, I admit—in HMRC’s online calculator, and it is concerned about how the implementation of these measures will be taken forward. It is particularly concerned that although the system is designed for fairness, the results that it produces may not be fair. I shall give some examples, if I may, of its concerns about clause 35.

The group is particularly concerned that the clause will remain reliant on interpretation according to guidance published in draft on HMRC’s website, which it believes is inconsistent with the clause. I am not making any assessment of the group’s judgment call on that matter, I am simply placing it on the table because this Committee debate gives the Exchequer Secretary the opportunity to examine whether that concern is justified. He may be able to provide some comfort by giving his interpretation.

The group has raised the concern that under schedule 8 —the schedule will be discussed in the Public Bill Committee, but it is worth mentioning now—the changes will apply only to those whose employer estimates them to be higher rate or additional rate taxpayers at a particular point in time, rather than to those who are actually found to be so by a final assessment. It is important that either now or when we discuss schedule 8 in the Public Bill Committee, the Exchequer Secretary reflects upon that concern and provides some clarity about when the assessment will be made on whether individuals are higher rate or additional rate taxpayers. We need to know at what stage in the financial year that assessment will be made, who will make it, how much of a burden it will be on employers and employees and whether the figures and facts that HMRC will use in the calculation are sound and to his satisfaction. They must be seen to be just and fair.

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group has expressed concern that the change may have equality impacts, for example on employees who become long-term sick or disabled, on women or on those who switch to part-time work in the course of the year. It suggests that there should be some flexibility in the interpretation of clause 35 and schedule 8.

The Library has calculated that overall, families will be some £1,700 a year worse off due to the Government’s tax and benefit changes, of which clause 35 is one. As my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) mentioned, the Prime Minister promised to lead the most family-friendly Government ever, and I should like to hear from the Exchequer Secretary where the proposal, when linked to the proposals on child benefit and the working tax credit and the others that we know about, fits into the Government’s overall strategy for child care.

We accept that there will have to be difficult and challenging decisions, and I reconfirm that the previous Labour Government wished the targeting now set out in clause 35 to progress.