Tomorrow (Tuesday) Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary will demand urgent action in
parliament from the Home Office to fix the backlog, which
continues to cause misery for British families.
Labour has revealed tens of thousands of people have had to wait
over ten weeks for a passport, as travel disruption continues to
plague families.
The figures blow apart Boris Johnson’s claim in parliament that
everyone was receiving their passport within 4-6 weeks.
The estimate, revealed by the Home Office in answer to
parliamentary questions from Labour, suggests that in the first
three months of the year – the most recent period for which data
is available – over 35,000 people had to wait longer than ten
weeks for their passport to be issued.
Last week there were reports of hundreds of people camped out in
long queues at Liverpool waiting for an appointment.
Internal figures uncovered by Labour also reveal passport office
civil servants were slashed by almost a fifth in recent
years.
Full-time civil servants were slashed from 3,913 in 2016 to 3,232
in 2021, with many replaced by agency staff.
Commenting Shadow Home Secretary, MP said:
“The Home Office is a shambles and Ministers are totally failing
to get a grip.
“Thousands of people have already had to wait more than ten weeks
for their passports, far too many passports are getting lost in
the system and no one can get proper information out of the
helpline.
“The Government has failed to plan and badly mismanaged our
services - this is the Tories’ Backlog Britain and it is letting
families down.”
Commenting Shadow Transport Secretary, said:
“These figures blow apart Boris Johnson’s nonsense
claims.”
“This backlog is causing misery for families who are already
feeling the pinch, and this hapless government is refusing to
even acknowledge it.
“From processing passports to getting people through airports,
this Tory government can’t even get the basics right.
“And now the Conservatives plan further senseless cuts, leaving
staff fighting this huge backlog with one hand tied behind their
back.”
Ends
Notes
Home Office Passport data shows
2,485,537
January 2022: 571,349
February 2022: 819,701
March 2022: 1,094,487
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hm-passport-office-data-q1-2022
The Home Office admitted that since April 2021 applicants are
being asked to leave ten weeks, and that 1.4% of applications are
taking longer than ten weeks. Labour have estimated this will
mean 35,000 people waited longer than ten weeks for a passport in
this week alone (https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-06-06/13191)
HMPO Staffing levels show full time civil servants fell
at HMPO in every year but one since April 2016.
|
Date (end of month)
|
CS Paid Staff (FTE)
|
Year Change (+/-)
|
|
April 2016
|
3,913.30
|
|
|
April 2017
|
3,763.84
|
-3.8%
|
|
April 2018
|
3,619.36
|
-3.8%
|
|
April 2019
|
3,543.02
|
-2.1%
|
|
April 2020
|
3,585.61
|
+1.2%
|
|
April 2021
|
3,398.83
|
-5.2%
|
|
March 2021 (latest figures)
|
3,232.54
|
-4.9%
|
This is paid civil servants including permanent
and FTA staff numbers.
The number of ‘paid non-civil servants’ is 1,184.52 and that this
is mainly Agency staff. Meaning 26% of staff within the
HMPO is currently made up of Agency staff.
