Draft Passport (Fees) Regulations 2022

James Sunderland Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 General Committees

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I, too, thank the Minister for introducing the draft statutory instrument. As he said, most of this is pretty technical and the changes are not hugely significant. For that reason, we will not be opposing it, either. But I will make two or three short points.

Obviously, and as the Minister acknowledged, the background to all this is the challenges and difficulties facing the Passport Office at the moment and the fact that we all have large numbers of constituents who are struggling to get hold of passports in time for their holidays. I have said quite a bit about that in the Chamber already, so I need not repeat what I have said previously. However, to justify the passport fee, we need transparency from the Passport Office as to how it is performing. The Minister said again today that 250,000 passports are being processed every week, but we also need to know how many applications are being made and what the up-to-date position is on the backlog. If there could be more transparency about exactly where the Passport Office is on that at any given time, that would be hugely helpful.

Another aspect of transparency is about the policies that staff are operating to. Hon. Members have already mentioned the very helpful desk being operated at Portcullis House. I pay tribute to the staff there for their patience in the face of overwhelming demand. However, it does seem to be a very fast-moving and complicated policy picture. I understand that this week, for example, a rule was introduced whereby someone would not be able to escalate or accelerate the passport process unless they had been waiting for six weeks. It would be useful to know whether there is a place where MPs can go to see the policies that staff are operating to, so that we can understand exactly how things are operating. There have been cases where I have gone away from PCH with a certain piece of advice, only for the constituent to tell me that they eventually got through on the phone line and were told something a little different, so a little more transparency and clarity about exactly what rules and policies are in place at any given time would be useful.

In relation to that specific, six-week rule, I can sort of understand it in the context of people who had allowed their passport to run down and perhaps at least should have been aware of the need to apply in advance. There is a specific issue about those who have lost their passport. I have a constituent who has applied for a passport three or four weeks in advance of their holiday. That is not because they had got complacent or allowed their passport to run down, but if the six-week rule then prevents them from accelerating the process, that causes difficulty, so I wonder whether there is a way to apply a different rule for those who have lost their passports or had them stolen.

I mentioned the telephone line. Lots of constituents are still complaining that they are struggling to get through. They are having to wait hours and racking up significant phone bills. Can the Minister say a little more about what work is being done to address that and, as I said, the sometimes slightly inconsistent responses that we get?

As the Minister said, these regulations do not increase passport fees, but as I understand it, they do continue the system whereby citizens are charged a fee that is actually higher than the cost to the Passport Office of producing the passport. We have complained about that before and we again place on the record our objection on the basis that this is really an essential Government service to our citizens, and the idea that the Passport Office is making a profit sits uncomfortably with us. The Minister will say that it is reinvested elsewhere, in Home Office policy areas. To our mind, that argument could be made in relation to visit visas, for example, but this is something a little more fundamental. It is about people’s citizenship, and it is inappropriate to be making a profit on that.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

To their complete credit, the SNP spokesman and the shadow Minister are raising some really good points, and I endorse all that has been said this morning. My question is simple: does the hon. Gentleman agree that, ultimately, the statutory instrument in question will speed up the process and provide a much more efficient process for the benefit of all?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am not sure that this statutory instrument will make much difference in the grand scheme of things. I will come to the one element of it that appears to be designed to address that. It is about increasing incentives to ensure that people actually turn up for their appointments and therefore we are not losing the slots. I support that, and it might make a little difference. In fact, the deadline for priority passports has been slowed from seven days to eight days, so this will not fundamentally alter the way things are happening.

I have made a point about the profit. Moving on to the idea that application fees will not be refundable, I absolutely get the idea in relation to the 48 hours and not getting the booking fee back. That seems absolutely fine. But failing to refund even the cost of the actual passport application for people who do not show up seems to me a little harsh. I think it might end up making a rod for the Minister’s back. Again, why not just leave it at the booking fee or perhaps a proportion of the application fee? He has mentioned that there will be a policy of giving refunds in compassionate circumstances, but that would not cover, for example, someone who gets stuck in a traffic jam, a tube breakdown or anything like that. I think it is going to be difficult, so I wonder whether the Minister could look generously at what that policy will be and perhaps move it beyond compassionate circumstances.

As I said, on the whole, there is nothing too controversial about all this, and I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the background.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

For example, someone might have glued themselves to the road outside or to the door, or witnessed a crime on the way. Again, we could get a very long list of reasons why people, through no fault of their own, were unable to get to an appointment. However, we will not draw up an exhaustive list, because we could be here all day doing that, only for someone to say, “Have you thought of this?”—so no. We intend to be generally flexible, but if someone just forgets, does not bother or whatever, that is the point at which we have to say, “Well, I’m sorry, but public resource was wasted. A slot that could have been used to process a passport for someone else was wasted.”

Furthermore, the issue formed part of our planning to deal with the surge: we felt that it was appropriate to be clear and proportionate. If someone rings us up beforehand, it is £30, and if someone rings us up more than 48 hours before, completely free of charge, because someone cancelling with 48 hours’ notice allows us to readvertise the slot and, at the moment certainly, we know that other people will be only too happy to take up the slot. We felt that that was proportionate, because most people will ring up and cancel. We feel that £30 is not a huge cost barrier, but is enough to be an incentive to ring up and cancel at a point when we can readvertise the slots to someone else.

I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire that all appropriate security checks continue to be done on all passport applications. A number of checks are in place. Colleagues will appreciate why, for example, child passports might take slightly longer—certain checks apply for travel by under-18s.

[James Sunderland]

I have two quick questions. First, when will the policy take effect, and will customers be given sufficient notice of the change in policy? Secondly, if an appointment is cancelled with sufficient notice, is the Minister completely confident that that appointment will be reallocated to somebody else in the queue?

[Kevin Foster]

The regulations will come into force 20 days after they are made. It is only fair that we make that clear so that people can book appointments. At the moment, we can say that slots will definitely be readvertised, and if there is high demand it is very likely that people will book them. In more normal circumstances, will every slot that is freed up be booked? Possibly not, but if there is less demand on the day for fast-track or priority, people can be reallocated to do other work in the Passport Office, rather than work on the counters and potentially spend all morning wondering where people are. We cannot say that absolutely every slot will be used, but the Passport Office will at the very least be able to plan the day more effectively rather than have people sitting and waiting for applicants who do not turn up.

Are we confident about the wider system? I have been asked about getting through 9.5 million applications this year. We have got through 2 million in two months, and I am sure that most of us can calculate what 1 million a month equates to. On staffing numbers and preparation, we have already increased staffing in the Passport Office by more than 500 since last April, and a further 700 are on the way and will have joined by the summer.