Earlier this month the report on the Public Accounts Committee investigation I led into the passport chaos that marred last summer was published.

We all saw it coming. It was inevitable that when travel restrictions lifted, people would rush to apply for new passports.

The Home Office knew it was coming, but still failed to prepare sufficiently.

It became obvious very quickly that there were big problems last spring.

My inbox, and the inboxes of my MP colleagues, were filling up fast with messages from frantic families concerned they would have to cancel expensive holidays. Others faced being unable to attend funerals or other important events delayed during the pandemic. Work opportunities were stymied.

Constituency casework went through the roof.

The helplines were hopeless, people would get through after hours waiting only to be hung up on. One of my team was on hold for four hours, trying to get a case dealt with.

The Passport Office’s outdated digital system was spilling over, with applications moving to be processed by hand, something that caused further confusion and delays.

It was a perfect storm. The three week turn-around had become 10. Around 360,000 customers had to wait even longer than that.

At the time I called on the Home Secretary to grip the problem and also raised the alarm through an Urgent Question. It was impossible to get a straight answer on the scale of the issue and what was being done to sort it.

It is only now, with the publication of the report, that we can set out what went wrong.

The report finds that not only was the level of service very poor, despite the best efforts of Passport Office staff, but the Home Office has shown a distinct lack of interest in the impact it had on those affected.

Communication with customers was poor. Frustration and confusion were rife, with the Passport Office itself having a lack of understanding about why applications were stalling in its systems. Poor performance from contractors only made things worse.

Looking ahead, I am concerned about this summer.

A similar demand is expected this year and I’m not convinced that the right lessons have been learned.

For the future we need a better digital system, improved capacity in the Passport Office to deal with demand, and much better communication with applicants.

If the clunky system is not upgraded I fear we may well see similar scenes again this summer.