Tens of thousands of people are waiting over ten weeks for passports, according to new figures released by the Labour party.
Over 35,000 people had to wait longer than ten weeks for their passport to be issued according to estimates from Home Office figures for the first three months of the year.
The figures blow apart Boris Johnson’s claim in parliament that everyone was receiving their passport within four to six weeks, Labour said.
Yvette Cooper MP, the Shadow Home Secretary, is demanding urgent action to fix the backlog which is causing misery for families trying to go on holiday.
Cooper said: “The Home Office is a shambles and Ministers are totally failing to get a grip.”
She added: “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.”
“This is the Tories’ Backlog Britain and it is letting families down.”
Holidaymakers have been urged since April last year to leave at least ten weeks applying for a passport after a post-Covid surge.
But minsters now admit 1.4 per cent of applications are not being completed even within ten weeks.
This is despite Boris Johnson telling MPs on May 25: “To the best of my knowledge, everybody is getting their passport within four to six weeks.”
The Home Office has not released precise numbers of the number of applications taking longer than ten weeks
The Passport Office is currently processing around 250,000 passport applications per week. That suggests around 15,000 a month could be taking longer than 10 weeks.
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.
Shadow Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh MP said: “From processing passports to getting people through airports, this Tory government can’t even get the basics right.”
She demanded Boris Johnson end his “senseless” planned civil service staff cuts of around 20 to 40 per cent by 2025.
Haigh added: “Staff are fighting this huge backlog with one hand tied behind their back.”
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