EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Huw Irranca-Davies

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Home Secretary has deprived him of his will to live, so I feel sorry for him, but he is right that we need to get on to the huge amount of substance in this debate.

I must say that the most startling thing of all in the chaos of last week’s debate was not the betrayal of promises or even the contempt for Parliament, but seeing the Chief Whip and the Home Secretary having to sit next to each other on the Government Front Bench and having to talk to each other for a change.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my surprise that the intervention by the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) was not to thank her for giving the House the opportunity to demonstrate the good faith of the Prime Minister? The Prime Minister said—quite clearly, I think—that there would be a vote on a specific measure, so I look forward to interventions by Conservative Members thanking her for giving them such an opportunity, not passing that over as if it had never been said.

[Yvette Cooper]

I am sure that Conservative Members are all deeply grateful to us, which is why they have come to the Chamber to join the debate today.

We still do not know whether it was the Chief Whip or the Home Secretary who made so much of a mess of last week. In June, the Chief Whip said of the Home Secretary that she

“lacked intellectual firepower and quick wit”.

He said that “she has no friends”, and with amazing prescience, he said that

“she can’t even gain the support of her colleagues”.

That makes two of them, because the Chief Whip is on a roll. He nearly lost a vote—he came within 10 votes of doing so—last week. The man who is supposed to be working the bars of Westminster lost a vote on pubs this week. The man who is supposed to be holding the parliamentary Conservative party together has managed to mislay two MPs. When he was appointed, he said that his new job was

“to ensure the right people are in the right place”.

It is just a shame that they were in the wrong Lobby.

Passport Applications

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Huw Irranca-Davies

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We understand that staff are working long hours, including weekends, but people are still not getting their passports in time.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend think that my constituent should be refunded? She was standing in the queue at Newport passport office being asked to part with £55 for the privilege of getting her delayed passport at the very moment that the Home Secretary was on her feet last week saying that charges would be waived from the following Monday. Should she not have that £55 refunded, as well as a letter of apology, perhaps?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. It is unfair on British citizens across the country who have been asked to pay more money in order that they can go on holiday simply because of the Home Office’s incompetence. Carla McGillivary and Dean Anderson applied for a passport for Dean more than six weeks ago. He cannot get an urgent upgrade because his is a first-time adult application. They paid for their holiday to Portugal out of Carla’s redundancy pay. Her new job is a zero-hours contract, so she does not know when she will be able to book a holiday again. They have been looking forward to this holiday, even arranging for their son to go swimming with dolphins. They fear now that they will have to cancel their holiday or risk losing all the money—they are supposed to pay the remainder of the deposit today. They have not got Dean’s passport and they do not know when it will arrive. Carla said:

“This is our first family holiday. I have no idea when we will be able to go on holiday again. I just don’t know what to do.”

One family had to leave their young son behind with his grandparents, because his passport did not come in time. One man missed his brother’s wedding in Greece because his passport did not come in time, despite his applying weeks in advance. People have saved up, worked hard and looked forward to a precious holiday for months. People have weddings, funerals, family events abroad, business trips, conferences, meetings and deals to make. Some people who are living abroad are keen to come home or just want to make sure that their visas are still valid.

Today we need to know whether the Home Secretary yet has control of the problem, whether she knows when things will be back to normal and whether she understands what went wrong in the first place. We also want to debate the new policies that she has announced. Are they working and are they enough to solve the problem? So far we have had little reassurance that the Home Secretary has been on top of the problem. Just last week she and the Minister for Security and Immigration were saying that there was no backlog. Now we know that it is hundreds of thousands. Last week the Home Secretary said how pleased she was that the Passport Office was meeting the service standards and that 99% of passports were being sent out within four weeks. Yesterday we learnt from the Passport Office chief executive that tens of thousands of passports every week are missing those service standards.