Geoffrey Robinson
Main Page: Geoffrey Robinson (Labour - Coventry North West)Department Debates - View all Geoffrey Robinson's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs May
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right that a number of the more complex and worrying cases have come from those who are applying from overseas. That is why we are putting those measures in place. As I said in relation to the emergency travel documents, parents will still have to show comprehensive proof that the child is theirs, because child protection must, of course, be at the forefront of our minds.
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Is the Home Secretary aware that it was nothing short of idiotic to take on the responsibility for processing passport applications from overseas at the very time when her Department was expecting the pre-summer surge, which happens every year? There is a bit more of a surge this year, but it is more or less in line with the extra people that she has. That was plainly just an idiotic management decision.
More importantly, will the Home Secretary explain to the House why there was not a single Government Back Bencher at the Adjournment debate on this issue to represent people’s interests, despite her plug for the debate earlier that day? The Minister for Security and Immigration, who is responsible for the Passport Office, reassured the House on Tuesday that
“We have not compromised on our checks, and will not do so.”—[Official Report, 10 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 526.]
How was it possible for him to give that reassurance when a letter had gone out the previous day doing precisely that? Why does she not—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just say before the Home Secretary responds that there is a great deal of interest, which I am keen to accommodate, at least in part? It would help if contributions were brief. We have the business question to follow and the last day of the Queen’s Speech debate is exceptionally heavily subscribed. People will lose out, and they will lose out all the more if there is not economy.