Passport Office (Delays)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Robinson

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I would like to speak on behalf of the hundreds of people in my constituency who are suffering as a result of the Government’s incompetence in the issuing of passports and, indeed, on behalf of all Back Benchers for whom this debate is a useful opportunity to voice discontent about a major public service for which the Home Office is responsible. I am therefore pleased to welcome the Minister for Security and Immigration, who will respond to the debate. We know that the Home Secretary currently has many things on her mind and is doing many things other than running the Passport Office. Nevertheless, it is regrettable that ministerial neglect has led to the dire situation that has given rise to this Adjournment debate.

I would like to provide some context. The passport delays now number 500,000. We can call them delayed, or “in process”—whatever the Minister wants. I see him shaking his head already, but he leaves the whole House incredulous with his simple, naive belief in the numbers presented to him. Why are we having this debate? Why have so many Members lobbied me to intervene? It is simply because people in their constituencies are not getting passports anything like on time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this issue before the House, because not one Member present is not bothered by it. In the Belfast passport office, 30,000 people are waiting for their passports to be processed. That is an astronomical number bearing in mind that Northern Ireland’s population is 1.8 million. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that contingency money should be made available to recruit extra staff to clear the backlog and get the problem sorted out?

[Mr Robinson]

I will come to that point in a minute. If the situation could be sorted out in that way, I would wholly agree with the hon. Gentleman. I am not sure that it can be because one of the problems, which I will deal with later, is that the Government have left it so late to react to this burgeoning problem that there is probably no time left to deal with it in the relatively short period before the holidays. That is one of the tragedies of the situation.

The nub of the problem lies in the cuts that the Government have made. They have cut 700 personnel who are directly concerned with processing and examining passports before they are issued. Those are not back-office jobs, but people who are directly involved in the process. There has been a 20% cut, with no plans to retrain, reskill or build up alternative resources for the key periods. We all know that businesses have to plan for such key periods.

Cigarette Packaging

Debate between Jim Shannon and Geoffrey Robinson

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful for that intervention. The concern about jobs in the printing and packaging industry will be shared by many, particularly Members from Northern Ireland, who still have a fairly large tobacco-related industry in their constituencies. We can come to that in due course, but the fact is that none of us wants to stop the progressive reduction in smoking, and if it seems a reasonable presumption that reducing the attractiveness of the packaging will help, we must face up to the jobs implications. However, I hasten to add that, having considered the issue in the round, I do not think that the implications will be so severe, because after all, as I have pointed out already, we are not talking about “plain” packaging. The same inventiveness and printing of graphic images that have already been brought to bear will continue; indeed, they will be put to much better use than trying to encourage youngsters to try smoking because it seems attractive or because cigarettes are packaged as lipstick, or any of the other advertising gimmicks that have been used.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter to the Floor of the House this evening, as many people are concerned about it. Cancer Research UK has been working with its campaigning partners to explain why plain packs are needed and to rebut the myths circulated by the industry. Does he feel that plain packaging will reduce the number of deaths resulting from smoking? If it saves lives, the Government need to introduce plain packaging legislation as soon as possible.

[Mr Robinson]

The cancer campaign’s research to which the hon. Gentleman refers has come out strongly in favour of the proposal, as have Action on Smoking and Health and most other related parts of the health industry, in the public sector and the NHS in particular. They have all made the case that the proposal is plausible and that it should represent the next push in a campaign that has been effective but has now faltered. Since 2007, the figures have levelled out; there has been no further reduction in smoking. I think that that will come as a surprise to many people, and it makes the next step an important one. In my view, the next useful step would be plain packaging.