Grounded? Theresa May promises action on passport delays

Home Secretary Theresa May insisted on Wednesday that the Passport Office was meeting its targets despite an unprecedented high demand. She told reporters that the Passport Office will put more staff and resources in place to “ensure they can deal with these applications.”

Mrs May said that Passport Office had been putting steps in place since January to deal with an increased workload, with offices open longer hours and staff working longer hours.

The Home Secretary added: “Of course, I recognise that this is about people and their holiday plans and so we will be constantly looking at this to be sure that the Passport Office is putting the level of resources in to deal with this very high level of applications.”

We are not complacent about this issue. Home Secretary Theresa May

Labour has criticised the government’s “complacent” approach to what it called a “crisis” – and said that there are reports of a backlog of 500,000 passport applications and renewals.

The Home Affairs Select Committee has called the head of the Passport Office to appear before it to explain why staff have been moved from checking for fraud to dealing with the backlog.

What they say

The home secretary insisted that the government was not being complacent about the issue. “The number of staff in the Passport Office has gone up,” she said.

“In the first few months of this year, we saw a significant increase in the number of applications for passports – both renewals and new passports – and I’m pleased to say that even given the unprecedented levels of applications we were seeing, we are still meeting the service standards of 97 per cent of straightforward applications being returned within three weeks and 99 per cent being returned within four weeks.

@Channel4News sons, supposed to be going on holiday 1st thing Tuesday morning. Applied for a renewal nearly 7 wks ago. Its not looking good.

— Annie (@AnnemareW) June 11, 2014

“But I have to say we are not complacent about this issue, we are continuing to look to see if there are further contingency measures that need to be put into place, should we see the significant increase in applications we have seen in the first few months of the year continue.”

However, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the home secretary’s answers to the House of Commons on the issue were “incredibly complacent”.

“Many of us have had this experience – chasing, trying to make sure that our constituents get their passports in time to go on the holiday that they have put all their savings into or to be able to go to a business trip abroad.

@Channel4News been waiting for a call since Saturday to fast track my passport, still no call and I fly a week tomorrow #help

— Alice Westoby (@alicemayw_) June 11, 2014

“We are told that there is a backlog of half a million cases. We all know that there are people coming in a state of panic now for fear of losing money, having to put extra money in themselves to pay for fast-track services, having to rush across the country to Durham or elsewhere in order to pick their passport up,” she said.

Keith Vaz, Labour’s chairman of the Home Affairs select committee, said the “real problem” was staff being taken off fraud duties.

“That means they are not doing the very important work that they are required to do in checking fraud,” he said.

Ms Cooper added: “This is deeply troubling if important security measures are being dropped simply because they have a crisis in the Passport Agency and the Home Secretary has taken her eye off the ball.”

‘Tragedy’

Labour MP for Coventry North West Geoffrey Robinson said ministers owed an apology to the “tens of thousands” who faced having their summers ruined.

He told the Commons delays at the Passport Office now ran to 500,000 applications.

“Call them delays, call them in process, call them whatever you want… people in their constituencies are not getting their passports in anything like (the normal time),” he said.

“The government has left it so late in its reaction to this burgeoning problem there is probably no time left to deal with it in the relatively short period we have building up to the holidays – that’s one of the tragedies of the situation.

Immigration Minister James Brokenshire will face further questions over passports on Wednesday.

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