HM Passport Office Backlog

Debate between Kevin Foster and Lucy Allan

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on his diligence in tackling this difficult problem. Will he continue to help the constituents of Telford in the way that he has? Every single one of my constituents has received their passport when I have approached the Minister. Will he continue to offer that level of assistance across the House to all Members who approach him?

[Kevin Foster]

That intervention serves as a reminder of the effectiveness delivered by my hon. Friend and the wise choice Telford residents made at recent general elections in electing such a hardworking Member of Parliament to advocate on their issues in this place. I must say that I have not done what my hon. Friend says only for Conservative colleagues; I have also assisted on issues raised by other Members, including one or two who left the Chamber at the start of the debate potentially because of what it was about.

We are keen to get on with delivering services but colleagues will recognise that there is a very great surge of demand. It was interesting to hear the example from the US; there are plenty of other examples of this problem from around the world despite the interesting comments we have heard that have tried to make out that it is somehow unique to Britain. Some Members need to visit a website or two or read an international newspaper; they will then find out that such things do actually happen across the world, not just in the United Kingdom. We will certainly carry on our work, and we are grateful for my hon. Friend’s support.

HM Passport Office provides an expedited service where an application from the UK has been with it for longer than 10 weeks. Where a customer in those circumstances can provide evidence that they are due to travel within the next fortnight, their case will be prioritised. That helps to ensure that the small percentage of people whose application has taken more than 10 weeks will continue to receive their passport ahead of their travel. I must stress that this expedited service comes at no additional cost to our constituents. For those who require their passport sooner than 10 weeks, Her Majesty’s Passport Office offers urgent services, available for a further fee.

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Debate between Kevin Foster and Lucy Allan

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan]

The hon. Gentleman is right: local authorities’ powers are not being enforced, and there is a reason for that. We need to do much more to ensure that local authorities do enforce them.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) said that authorities needed more resources with which to enforce legislation. Torbay Council has used the powers that the Government have given it to levy fines of up to £30,000 in order to increase its housing enforcement team using money from those who abuse their tenants.

[Lucy Allan]

I am delighted to hear that Torbay is using these powers, and I urge my local authority, Telford and Wrekin, to follow its example.

Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Kevin Foster and Lucy Allan

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 1st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the rapid growth of new towns makes it logical to have more regular reviews, every five years rather than every 10 years?

[Lucy Allan]

That is an interesting point. We are not taking into account the number of people who are coming to new towns such as my constituency, or, indeed, the number of people who will move into the houses that are being built and have almost been completed.

In my view, the so-called public consultation has been no such thing. The Boundary Commission is simply taking submissions from political parties that have gathered a great deal of local support and, in some cases, not so local support. They are lobbying for an outcome that supports the political objectives that benefit them. My constituency is a case in point. The situation is farcical: all the people who are sending submissions are politically connected, and they all want the constituency to grow significantly when it could stay as it is and be within the threshold. I cannot believe that any genuine members of the public would want to share their MP with a larger number of people.

Given that there will not be another general election until 2022, the Government have an opportunity to consider carefully whether to take this proposal off the table, go back to the drawing board and get it right for the future. Why wait until October 2018, find that the House does not want the proposals to go ahead, and then start thinking about how to correct the process? We need to update the position and redraw boundaries at some point, but we must get it right, and I think that, for all sorts of reasons, we have an opportunity to do that now.

I commend the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, and also the former Member of Parliament for North West Durham, who presented the same Bill for the same reasons last year. There is a lack of flexibility and a failure to recognise that MPs must care for all constituents, registered or not. We must give a voice to all our constituents, be they in affluent Tory shires or urban areas.

Teenage Pregnancy: Regional Variations

Debate between Kevin Foster and Lucy Allan

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered regional variations in the rate of teenage pregnancy.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I am pleased to have been able to secure this afternoon’s debate; it is timely, because data published by the Office for National Statistics in March showed a steady decline in the average rates of teenage pregnancy in England and Wales. Those data have been widely celebrated, and rightly so. Teenage pregnancy is a huge barrier to opportunity; it creates lifelong and entrenched disadvantage. The causes and consequences so often overlap—deprivation, family breakdown, low aspiration, intergenerational worklessness, mental health difficulties, poor educational attainment and poor school attendance.

Despite the welcome fall in average rates, England and Wales still has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in western Europe, so we must guard against complacency. An average is just an average and often masks extremes and regional variations. It is not really enough to say, “We are going in the right direction.”

Although high rates of teen pregnancy are closely correlated with deprivation, teen pregnancy should never be accepted as inevitable in any area, because that would fail the young people affected, many of whose lives are already profoundly insecure and who may see motherhood as a positive way out. Those are the young people most in need of help and support.

Hon. Members will share my commitment to improving the life chances of young people in our constituencies, so I would like briefly to talk about the situation in Telford. Back in 1998, Telford had a teen conception rate of 64 per thousand. It is no doubt good news that it has fallen to approximately 32 per thousand—it has halved, so the situation in Telford is much better than it was. However, in 1998 the rate of teen pregnancy in Telford was 36% higher than the national average, but today it is 42% higher, so rather than getting better, the gap between Telford’s teen pregnancy rates and the national average is getting worse.

I would argue that high rates of teen conception are not inevitable. My constituency lies in the heart of Shropshire. Although Telford is in the worst-performing decile of local authority areas, more affluent rural Shropshire, which surrounds Telford, is in the best-performing decile, with some of the lowest teen pregnancy rates in the country. Based on that fact alone, it would be too easy to argue that deprivation, poverty, health inequality and all that causes those difficulties cannot be improved. Naturally, many demographic and social factors play a part, and I fully accept that it is difficult to find a like-for-like comparison, which is why an average does not tell us that much. Equally, it is too often assumed in the most deprived areas that nothing much can be done. Good things get better and bad things get worse if they are not tackled actively.

There are some individual success stories in local authorities, which other local authority areas could learn from, and I will mention a couple. In 1998, Leicester had a teen pregnancy rate of 64 per thousand. That fell to 25 per thousand in 2014, which is close to the national average. Similarly, Caerphilly had a rate of 70 per thousand in 1998, which has also fallen to about the 25 per thousand mark. In Hammersmith and Fulham, a similar decline has been experienced, with the rate falling from 70 per thousand to 22 per thousand, which is just above the average.

There are plenty of examples of how high teenage pregnancy rates can be tackled over time, but I want specifically to draw attention to the model in the London borough of Wandsworth, which has been a success story that other local authorities would do well to look at closely. In 1998, the rate of teen pregnancy there was 71 per thousand. Wandsworth is now outperforming the national average, with a rate of 19 per thousand. That has been achieved through a true commitment to focusing on teen pregnancy. It was not just a statement in the joint strategic needs assessment. Teen pregnancy was treated as the No. 1 indicator of how the local authority was performing, and all partner agencies took that view. There was a clearly defined plan, with achievable goals, a teen pregnancy unit, outreach work and early intervention to identify the young people most at risk and provide support to address multiple causes and raise self-esteem. There was a genuine commitment and a belief in improving the life chances of those least able to help themselves. Young people’s aspirations were built up and their resilience was strengthened to help them to make informed decisions and fulfil their potential.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, not least because Torbay, my constituency, has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the whole of the south-west region. Does she agree that the statistics show the importance of having leadership at local level, given the wide variation between local authorities, let alone regions? For example, the rate in my constituency is very similar to that in the north-east, yet only a few miles away West Devon has one of the lowest rates in the entire country.

[Lucy Allan]

My hon. Friend eloquently makes the point that I hope to have made by the end of my speech. Torbay does indeed stand out as a stark example of the significant regional variation across the country. He rightly says that one would not necessarily expect that, given the demographic and age profile of his constituency.

The way the success was achieved in Wandsworth was that resources were targeted at the young people aged 15 to 17 who were most likely to become pregnant, such as young people in care and care leavers, those with disrupted family relationships and the children of teen parents. We had a debate earlier about young people in care, and I want to highlight the fact that a quarter of young women leaving care are either pregnant or already mothers. Too often they are trying to fill the emotional gap from growing up without a family of their own, and sometimes in a chaotic succession of different placements. Yes, teenage pregnancy has fallen nationally and across Europe—that tells us a lot about a changing world, with young girls routinely aspiring to jobs and college and a better future—but we need to do everything that we can at local level, as my hon. Friend mentions, to help young women on that path.

A debate of this kind must touch on solutions to problems, and as the causes are so complex in this case, we have to accept that the solution is not straightforward either. More advice on contraception is helpful, but it will not tackle the issue if it is the only tool in the box—if only it were that easy. It has become fashionable to see universal sex and relationship education as a silver bullet and the panacea to high rates of teenage pregnancy, but I think we can all accept that teen pregnancy is a far more complex social and emotional issue than that, and more advice on contraception alone will not fix it. We have to address the specific needs of the young people most likely to be affected, so the focus and concentration has to be on the at-risk groups—those most in need—in order to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged young people.

Building stronger families and early intervention support for struggling families is part of the solution. We need also to recognise that looked-after children have different health and education needs from others. We mentioned in the debate earlier today the mental health of children in care, and that is a determinant in this complex issue. Also, school is not always a fixed certainty in the lives of the young people in question, so sex and relationship education at school will not necessarily tackle the problem if school attendance is a problem in itself.

One aspect of the marked regional variation is that we can identify young people who will be affected. An example is a young person who has been in contact with the police, or who does not like school and has been excluded. Young people not in education, employment or training are another group who are among the most likely to be affected by teen pregnancy. We have also touched on the role of a disrupted childhood and difficult relationships within families.

I pay particular tribute to the Government for their life chances strategy. I want to see a continued focus on championing stronger families, and addressing teenage pregnancy in the areas and groups where the rates are highest should be the overriding priority in achieving that goal.