Official figures contradict Home Secretary claim over Passport Office staffing

• Home Secretary hacked away at Passport Office at very time when workload increased
• Theresa May said: “It is not true that the number of staff at the Passport Office has gone down; the number has gone up.”
• But official figures show HM Passport Office still 600 staff down on previous levels

Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding to this data, said: 

“Theresa May’s response to this fiasco appears to be crisis, what crisis?
 
"While anxious holidaymakers wait for their passport applications to be processed, the Home Secretary just denies there is a problem.

"Yesterday she told us that no staff had been cut, and all the targets were being met.  

"Yet today we learn the Passport Office has had major staff cuts in the last four years, and the Home Secretary is belatedly trying to find more staff - including from fraud and security checks.

"If the Prime Minister and Home Secretary won’t admit to the scale of the problem, how can we have any confidence they will sort it out.

"Theresa May has taken her eye off the ball, and families are having their holidays wrecked as a result. It is deeply unfair. She needs an urgent plan to clear the passport backlog and help people worried about their holidays.”