Passport Applications

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Stephen McPartland

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

If the hon. Gentleman is so confident about independence, I have no need to answer that question.

During my wonderful time in Liverpool, earning a bit of money to get myself through my university years, the staff did a good job. Many of the staff are still there, although there have been a number of reorganisations. One key thing is that there were backlogs in those days. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury made the key point that, between January and May, 99% of passports were processed in four weeks. I can tell hon. Members that that was not the case when I worked in the passport office in Liverpool. It took a lot longer than that, and we used to look at the passport applications, wondering why it had taken so long for them to reach us to be printed.

My brother and sister also worked in that passport office in Liverpool. There are many of us, and such things are often family affairs in the great city that I come from. They had different roles. My brother was one of the examiners responsible for identifying whether somebody had the status to be given a British passport.

Hon. Members may not appreciate that once somebody gets a British passport, they can use it as a gateway document to enable them to access a variety of benefits and services within the United Kingdom, so it is incredibly important. One issue with delays for a specific passport is that we may have to be very careful about the security of the application to ensure that the person who will get the passport has a right to services in the United Kingdom. Failure to do so or a knee-jerk reaction—

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen McPartland]

I will not give way again, because Madam Deputy Speaker wants us to make progress so that other Members can speak.

The passport is a key document. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury gave the important statistic that there were 565,000 documents in 1999. I should like to discuss my experience, because hon. Members will be shocked to discover that I was actually there when the work of the Passport Office was outsourced by the previous Government. In 1998, the Labour Government outsourced me to Siemens Business Services, which wanted to replace my dot-matrix computer with 125 passports on it with some high-falutin’ laser printer based in Manchester. We would examine the passports in Liverpool, and when we pressed “print” on our computers, they would be sent off to Manchester to be printed.

People will be shocked to discover that, during that period, there was complete and utter chaos. The roll-out was so poor that it was actually delayed in all the other passport offices in the United Kingdom. We had spoken to the unions, and to the Ministers involved, and they had been warned for more than 12 months that there would be utter chaos. I left the Passport Office in March 1999, and after it lost my services, there just happened to be a passport crisis that summer. I have no idea why that happened. I was beavering away doing the best I could, and when I left, there were problems.

There were huge problems in 1999. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury has mentioned the fact that £12.6 million was paid out. My brother and sister were working in the passport office at the time, and they remember that angry people from all over the country, with their umbrellas, were forming huge queues round the India buildings. They were having to pay out, and it was a huge problem. Every one of those cases was a personal tragedy.

I find it upsetting that some Opposition Members have tried to suggest that the situation today is similar. What has happened over the past few months has been difficult for the individuals involved, but it is nothing like what it was then. I worked there; I experienced it and I can assure every Member that the word “chaos” does not do it justice. Towards the end of 1998, it was so bad that I was paid treble time to work on Sundays, with an extra £10 an hour just to turn up to work. I left university with no debts as a result of that, for which I am grateful to the previous Government. I took advantage of that overtime as much as I could. The reality was, however, that there were huge problems. What the Home Secretary has done over the past few months has resulted in a huge step forward from what I experienced when I was there some years ago.

I would like to put on record my gratitude to the staff in the Passport Office who have helped me and my constituents to get the nine passports that we have contacted the office about over the past few weeks. I give the Passport Office warning now on the Floor of the House that I shall be contacting it in the next few hours about a further three cases, when I have received further details from my constituents, and I hope that they will be processed just as fast.

We have to remember that there are human beings involved, and that the staff who are doing the examining and the printing are all doing the best they can. I was a little disappointed that the shadow Home Secretary saw fit to mock someone who was working on the advice line. I have been in that position myself, and it was very difficult when people were ringing from different countries and I was constantly fielding their concerns. That person will no doubt be disappointed to hear what she said. I want to put on record my thanks to the Home Secretary for her action to try to deal with the situation.