More than 550,000 passports were still waiting to be dealt with at the end of June, the passport office chief admitted.

Speaking to the Commons Home Affairs Committee, Thomas Greig warned delays in processing passport applications could continue over the summer and may not improve before the end of the year.

MPs heard it is still taking around 10 weeks to process 10% (around 55,000) of applications instead of the standard three weeks.

When asked by MPs on Wednesday when the situation could change, and if the wait time would return to three weeks by the end of the year, Mr Greig said: “I don’t think I can guarantee that.”

But he also stressed demand for passports had fallen “significantly” in the last few weeks.

Committee chairman Dame Diana Johnson said it was “completely unacceptable” that people were struggling to get their passports, adding: “This is not rocket science…

“It just seems to me this is a complete failure if you were looking at this from last July, and we’re still now, 12 months on, with all these people not being able to get their passports. Why is that? Why have you failed so miserably?”

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Travel journalist Simon Calder told MPs that in the 21st century it was “extremely regrettable” that people cannot “even get as far as the airport”.

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More staff have been hired and the department has “produced more passports than we ever have”, Mr Greig said.

In a typical year, the passport office deals with around seven million applications, but is expected to process a record 9.5 million in 2022.

Around 250,000 passports are processed per week, with five million dealt with so far this year – which is more than the entire amount handled in 2021, Mr Greig said.

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