Lord Paddick
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(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Again, the noble Lord makes a good point. I will inquire as to whether we have recruited permanent staff or agency staff. If they are permanent full-time staff, they can of course be flexible to meet the needs of other parts of the Civil Service.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, at the end of 2020, when the Passport Office realised that it was 2 million short of its normal applications, why did it not encourage people to apply early, anticipating the problems that we now see?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I do not know the answer to the question of why we did not encourage that. Obviously, we project numbers each year, but those numbers clearly did not transpire last year and we are now facing 9.5 million applications this year.