Grahame Morris
Main Page: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)Department Debates - View all Grahame Morris's debates with the Home Office
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend is right that drink spiking and needle spiking have a very serious impact. I fully understand the anxiety of his constituent, and of course all our hearts go out to her. I very much hope that she will take some reassurance from the funding that the Government have provided to the Norfolk police and crime commissioner. He has been granted £427,000 for a range of practical initiatives designed to keep women safe on the streets at night, including drink spiking kits, taxi marshals, street pastors and more. I am sure his constituent will be pleased to know that there is already a range of offences under which people can be imprisoned, and some of those offences attract a life sentence.
During the pandemic period, over 5 million people delayed applying for a British passport. This has led to unprecedented passport demand. To meet this, we have increased output to unprecedented levels. Since April 2021, HMPO has introduced a range of contingency measures, including technical improvements and a bolstering of its resources. This has helped to deliver record output, with over 1 million applications processed last month alone.
My experience cannot be unique; I think it is echoed by other Members in the House. This Easter, families and children in my constituency lost holidays due to the Passport Office failing to meet its service standard times. In telephone communications with the Passport Office, my staff and I have been misadvised and hung up on, and have received a series of broken promises. MPs once had valuable and effective links with passport offices to resolve complaints. Notwithstanding the contribution of the Home Office Parliamentary Private Secretaries—I thank them for their interventions—why can I not deal with my excellent local Durham passport office to resolve complaints, instead of waiting for hours, and failing to make progress, on so-called bespoke MP hotlines?
I would just point out that between January and March, over 90% of cases were completed within six weeks, but we advise people to allow up to 10 weeks for their application. Again, we are getting through this, but I recognise the point that the hon. Member makes about MPs’ contacts. That is certainly a point we will pick up; we need to make improvements there.