Passport Office (Delays)

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robinson]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to hear what the Minister proposes to do. The problem has been building up since the Government made the cuts. They failed to do any retraining or to provide for what was coming with a moderate level of overtime. Any service should be able to meet peak demands—that is what management is about.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that asking someone who is in China—such as one of my constituents—to ring up every 72 hours is very poor management, not only of his time but of staff time?

[Mr Robinson]

It is bad for business all round. We hear complaint after complaint, but the Minister sits there as if he is happy for the chaos to carry on all around him. It is amazing how late Ministers have reacted to this issue. The chaos has been mounting, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) so perceptively pointed out, but Ministers did not intervene with panic measures—which should not have been necessary—until the backlog had reached 350,000. Will the Minister confirm that he would normally seek to intervene when it reached 150,000?