Britons have been urged to act now if they want to avoid summer holiday disappointment by a travel expert.
As Passport office workers prepare to strike over ongoing pay and pensions disputes, people intending to get away in the coming months may need to kick their plans into motion earlier than expected.
Nicky Kelvin, Head of The Points Guy UK, says the current wait time is around 10 weeks for a new passport, which could be an unpleasant surprise for those planning getaways.
Speaking on GB News, he said: “The biggest piece of advice I can give is check your passport now and take action right now.
Nicky Kelvin has called on Brits to act now
GB News
“The Passport Office says that the wait time is 10 weeks. We’ve seen in the past couple of years wait times being incredibly long, the Passport Office has found inefficiencies and I think they struggled when workers were working from home during Covid.
“A 10 week wait is what we’re being told now and that’s quite a long time if your holiday is in a couple of weeks.
“It’s just about time now when you need to get your application in for the summer holidays if that’s when you’re looking to get away.
“Anecdotally, a cabbie told me he submitted an application and he got his back in 10 days, not 10 weeks. So have they become so efficient that they’re able to swallow these strikes?
Brits have been urged to act now to save their holidaysPA“If not, people are really going to be in trouble for this summer.”
It comes as workers picket outside eight Passport Office sites across the UK, including in Glasgow, and calling for a 10% pay rise.
PCS Scotland branch secretary Andrew Bain told PA news agency: “We’ve actually had two pay rises this year, because our lowest grade would have fallen under the National Minimum wage. That’s just how close we are to the breadline at the moment.
“We think 10% is perfectly fair, we have half of our members spending 50% of their wages on housing. It’s not a great situation for us to be facing.
“We’ve got members who are having to rely on Government benefits and foodbanks just to get through the month. It’s a shocking situation for workers of the Government to be in.
“They could find better wages working in the cafes and shops in Glasgow.”
He added: “We’ve got examiners doing complex case work on nationality and things like that and it seems like they would be better off to work for the likes of supermarkets, where there are higher wages and far less stress, being told you’re only worth 2% has a massive impact on your morale and mental health.
“We’re only in this position because the Government refuses to engage with us. We are at a crisis point.”
Picket lines are also being mounted outside offices in England at Durham, Liverpool, Southport, Peterborough and London; plus Belfast in Northern Ireland and Newport, Wales.
The union is stepping up strikes, with a nationwide walkout of more than 130,000 civil servants planned for April 28.
The Home Office said the Passport Office has already processed more than 2.7 million applications this year, and added that more than 99.7% of standard applications are being processed within 10 weeks, with the majority of those delivered to customers well under this timescale.
There are currently no plans to change official guidance which states that it takes up to 10 weeks to get a passport.
