Vote 'no' - or the Passport Office gets it

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It’s just as well that we have those stalwart defenders of Wales, True Wales, to protect us from the nasty nationalists of Plaid Cymru and, apparently, the Labour Party. 

In March 2009, they told us that a yes vote would undoubtedly lead to Independence and that Independence would equally surely lead to the loss of a large number of jobs in UK institutions based in Wales, including, interestingly enough, those at the Passport Office.

As opposed to a no vote which would ensure …  what, exactly?

Passport to where

Tweet The proposal to close the Newport Passport Office is a serious blow to jobs in that part of Wales. It would also, as a number of others have already pointed out, leave Wales without a passport office, and see all Welsh passport applications – including those submitted in Welsh – dealt with outside Wales.

An element of ‘special pleading’ on behalf of Wales is probably inevitable in a situation like this, but it leaves me a little uncomfortable. Not because I don’t think that Wales is, or should be, a special case, nor because I don’t want us to retain the passport office and the jobs going with it.

There is a danger, though, that ‘special pleading’ ends up sounding rather like ‘cut their jobs not ours’. And I’m not sure that an approach which starts to pit office against office is one which is in our own best long term interests.

I’m much more comfortable with an approach which asks why the cut is necessary at all. Are there really 300 people in the Passport service who are simply doing nothing? I find that hard to believe – so what’s the effect of cutting 300 jobs? Does it mean a reduced service - delays, backlogs?

One of the things which most concerns me about the programme of spending cuts is the extent to which it appears that most people are broadly supportive of cuts as long as they affect someone else. It’s a trap into which we should be wary of falling.