John McDonnell
Main Page: John McDonnell (Independent - Hayes and Harlington)Department Debates - View all John McDonnell's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs May
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding us of that. In all the debates on the Passport Office, people have lost sight of the fact that the Government were able to cut the cost of passports. That will have been welcomed by hard-working people in Harlow and across the country.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Part of the anger and frustration is that these problems were not just predictable—they were predicted. They were predicted by the front-line staff. Will the Home Secretary review the correspondence of the past two years, at least, from Public and Commercial Services Union front-line staff representatives, who wrote consistently that
“the closure of 22 interview offices and one application processing centre and the sacking of 315 staff…around one in 10 of the workforce…has been a major factor in creating this current crisis.”?
She has set up a review. It is best to talk to the front-line staff doing the job. Will she meet a delegation of PCS representatives from the front line to talk about how we can go forward urgently and in the long term?
Mrs May
The point of the review, as the hon. Gentleman understands, is to see whether the processes are the best possible we can have in place. As part of that review, I would certainly expect information to be taken from front-line staff, not just from union representatives in the way the hon. Gentleman suggests. I will certainly look at the possibility, which happens anyway, of Ministers—either myself or the Immigration Minister—meeting front-line staff. That is what I think is important: to meet front-line staff. The views of a variety of people will be taken in the review, but I return to a point I made earlier and to which the hon. Gentleman did not refer: the very high level of demand experienced by the Passport Office. It has already taken steps to deal with that.