This MP's column comes from Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley 

AFTER two years of lockdowns and travel uncertainty, many people were excited to finally travel abroad again.

Whether it was to see relatives, attend a delayed stag do, hen party, wedding or honeymoon - or simply for a well-deserved break - the end of lockdowns meant that people had the opportunity to cherish the freedoms they had once taken for granted and which had been removed from them.

However, many people have been, and continue to be, thwarted by the unacceptable situation at the Passport Office.

Currently, it is estimated that 500,000 people are waiting for their passports with 50,000 people waiting for longer than the advised ten-week service level agreement. To make matters worse, many of my constituents have been placed in limbo because the jammed phone lines have been providing inadequate information.

Christine Snowden, who resides in Baildon, spent over three hours on the phone to the Passport Office. She was passed around several customer service agents to eventually be told that her daughter’s passport was lost in the post and that a new application would have to be made to resolve the issue.

Another resident of Baildon reached out to me after he didn’t receive confirmation that his application had been received.

Malcolm Slimming made his application through the Post Office and provided all the relevant contact details on the application form. Malcolm made between 30 and 40 calls to the helpline, but it was not until I got in contact with the Passport Office that we were able to confirm that Malcolm’s application was processing.

Claire Revve, a constituent from Denholme, was excited to attend a wedding abroad. She allowed plenty of time for her son’s passport application to be approved, only to be left in the dark weeks before her trip.

As a result, Claire was unable to look forward to her holiday because of the stress of the application.

Melissa Robinson, who lives in Wilsden, received no updates on the processing of her son’s passport application.

As a last resort, Melissa’s husband travelled to the Durham Passport Office to be told that the passport could not be collected until 48 hours before travel. On the day before the flights, Melissa’s husband made the two-hour journey up the A1(M) and, after waiting for ten hours, eventually had his son’s passport in his hand.

In all these cases my constituents have thankfully received their passports, but I am afraid thousands of people will not receive their passports in time for their holidays.

This level of service is not acceptable. Any company in the private sector would go out of business if they treated their customers so badly and we should not accept such poor service in the public sector.

In an attempt to combat this huge backlog, the Passport Office has reportedly employed hundreds of extra staff to cope with the demand. However, that doesn’t seem to have done the trick.

As the chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Customer Service, I can state clearly that surveys show that levels of customer service in public sector organisations regularly lags behind those in the private sector largely because there is no alternative competition for customers if they are unhappy with their service.

Since the Covid lockdowns, service standards across Government-run departments have got worse and have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. DVLA backlogs mean that young people are waiting months for a driving test, NHS backlogs have left people dying on waiting lists, or having to go private, and court backlogs are delaying us from locking up serious criminals.

Therefore, the new Prime Minister must be dedicated to tackling these backlogs and improving service levels across Government-run departments. These backlogs have been largely caused by the disastrous decision to lock down the country during Covid - something that will go down as one of the most catastrophic public policy decisions of all time.

Those lockdowns have not just generated huge delays, they also seem to have brought about a new workshy attitude where people think that working from home permanently is perfectly acceptable.

The idea of going into the office has become an unreasonable expectation of employers and flexitime for the benefit of the worker irrespective of the needs of the customers now seems to be the norm.

We need a huge cultural change. Jacob Rees Mogg is right to try to get civil servants back to their desks and working to reduce the backlogs, and whoever emerges as the new Prime Minister needs to support him in that quest.

The public deserves nothing less.

In the meantime, if anyone living in my constituency is in urgent need of their passport for a trip abroad, please contact me and - although I cannot make any guarantees about timescales - I will do my very best to ensure it is received on time.