The British Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, launched a damage limitation exercise yesterday when he said there would be no resignations over the crisis facing Britain's Passport Agency which has seen thousands of holidaymakers queuing for days to get their passports.
His comments came after the Home Office Minister, Mr Mike O'Brien, said earlier this week his job and Mr Straw's would be "on the line" if the crisis was not swiftly resolved. Mr Straw said he was not going to resign when asked by reporters if his job was on the line, while the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, insisted "the queues are getting shorter".
The difficulties have arisen because of "teething problems" with a new computer system at the Passport Agency, a 40 per cent rise in the number of people taking holidays abroad this summer and the introduction of new regulations requiring children who are not on their parents' passports to travel on their own passport.
At the beginning of June the government announced that 300 extra staff would be drafted in to deal with the backlog of passport applications. But it was revealed this week that less than half that number has actually started work at the Passport Agency to process up to 565,000 documents for worried holidaymakers.
So far, the Passport Agency has processed about 2.4 million applications this year with 93 people having missed their holiday because of the delays in sending out their passports.
The Passport Agency was a Conservative creation and in 1997 in Labour's first attempt at a private finance initiative (PFI) it awarded the German computer company, Siemens Business Services (SBS) a £230 million sterling contract to bring the agency into the computer age.
Previously the Passport Agency dealt with applications on paper and the government hoped that by installing a computerised system, not only would costs and staff numbers be reduced, but also it would cut the number of days to process an application. The "teething problems" however, mean that applications are now taking between 35 to 39 days to process. But in Liverpool waiting time has jumped from 11 days to 41 days while in Newport, south Wales, many people have waited 38 days for new passports. But the agony is set to continue for holidaymakers. The government's latest estimate is that the passport crisis could last until October.
Meanwhile, the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, was forced into another humble apology in the Commons this week and avoiding another public relations disaster, offered a personal pledge to a bride from Clitheroe, near Blackburn, that she would get her passport so that she could go on her honeymoon.