Home Affairs

Brian H. Donohoe Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Gracious Speech that we heard last week included a comprehensive programme of legislation on home affairs and justice. Since coming to power, this Government have implemented far-reaching reforms of which they can be proud. We have introduced a programme of radical police reform, and crime has continued to fall—it is down more than 10% since the last election. We have reformed the immigration system, and net migration from outside the EU is down by almost a third since its peak under the last Government. We are transforming the criminal justice system, improving support for victims, rehabilitating offenders and making prisons more effective, while reducing the burden on the taxpayer. On counter-terrorism, the police and security agencies continue to rise to tough new challenges, working tirelessly to keep us safe. Our reforms and our legislative changes are working.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

One of the major problems facing my constituents is the time spent trying to get their passports. I have heard the right hon. Lady say that she is reforming the Passport Office, but she has reduced the number of staff to such an extent that those that are left are not able to perform as they should. What is the turnaround period for a passport application now?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention gives me an opportunity to tell the House that it is not true that the number of staff at the Passport Office has gone down; the number has gone up. In the first few months of this year, we saw a significant increase in the number of applications for passports, both renewals and new passports, and I am pleased to say that even given the unprecedented levels of applications, we are still meeting the service standards of 97% of straightforward applications being returned within three weeks, and 99% being returned within four weeks. We are not complacent. We continue to consider whether further contingency measures need to be put in place, should the significant increase in applications that we saw in the first few months of this year continue. I recognise the importance of this issue for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and for mine.

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[Yvette Cooper]

I must tell the hon. Gentleman that, unfortunately, public concern about immigration is much higher now than it was at the time of the general election. I hope that he will apologise to his constituents for backing a net migration target and promising that it would be met by the time of the next general election, but utterly failing to meet it.

The Government are not setting out the practical things that they could do. For example, they could stop agencies recruiting only from abroad, close loopholes in the minimum wage, go much further on unfair zero-hours contracts and make serious exploitation a crime. All those are things that the Government could do.

In response to my hon. Friends’ questions, the Home Secretary commented about the Passport Office, but I must say that her answers were incredibly complacent and simply do not reflect the experience of MPs right across the country. She claimed that all the targets are being met. From what she said, we would think that everything was absolutely fine. Tell that to James Bowness from Cumbria, who nearly missed his chance to qualify for the Commonwealth games because his passport did not arrive in time; pensioner Eileen Shepherd from Darlington, who missed her dream cruise because her passport did not arrive; or the Vernon family from Coventry, who missed their first family holiday abroad. They all applied in time, but the Passport Office let them down.

[Mr Donohoe]

One of the problems faced by Members of Parliament and their staff is that when they phone the ministerial hotlines, they do not get an answer for two or three days, and when they do it is incomprehensible and does not help them with the particular case.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. Many of us have had the experience of trying to ensure that our constituents get their passports in time to go on the holiday that they have put all their savings into, or to go on a business trip abroad. We are told that there is a backlog of 500,000 cases. We all know that people are now in a state of panic and, for fear of losing their money, are putting extra money in to pay for fast-track services or rushing across the country to Durham or elsewhere to pick up their passport.

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[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman is yelling rather than chuntering—I shall take the shadow Attorney-General’s word for it. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should talk to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole, who knows what he is talking about, whereas the hon. Gentleman does not, as is, regrettably, so often the case.

[Mr Donohoe]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Green]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows what he is talking about, so of course I will give way to him.

[Mr Donohoe]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. My intervention has nothing to do with what he has just said. He is more than halfway through his speech, but he has not said anything about the enormous dissent across the country about the problems in the Passport Office. Just this afternoon, I was told of another problem, so will he give a commitment that he will beef up that department so that Members of Parliament can at least get answers for their constituents?

[Damian Green]

I will say two things. First, the department has been beefed up, as the hon. Gentleman puts it: there are now more people working there than ever before. Secondly, if he can contain himself for less than 10 minutes, he will be able to listen to and contribute to the Adjournment debate, which is on that very subject and will be responded to by my hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Immigration.

A number of points have been made about immigration, which is worth addressing even though it is not in the legislative programme. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) made a very thoughtful contribution about the need for a sensible debate about immigration. I agree that we need a rational debate, but I disagree with Members from both sides of the House who say that we need a Bill in this Session, because, first, we had a Bill in the previous Session.

The Leader of the Opposition has apologised for the immigration problems under the previous Administration, so we now appear to be in the slightly perverse position where the only party still defending Labour’s immigration policy is the Scottish National party. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is hanging on grimly to the previous immigration policy, even though at least part of the Labour party, including its leader, is seeking to move beyond it. The second reason why we do not need another Bill is that if there is one lesson we can all draw from the previous Administration’s problems—whichever position we occupy on immigration—it is that legislation is not always the solution.

The previous Government passed eight immigration Bills in 13 years. If legislation were the solution to immigration problems, we would have had the most secure borders and the most controlled immigration in the world by 2010, but everyone—even the Leader of the Opposition—admits that, palpably, we did not.