After fiasco over delays, British ministers take control of passport office

The British government is to take back direct control of its much-criticised passport office after lengthy delays in renewing travel documents upset hundreds of thousands of travellers.

The passport office will be stripped of its executive agency status - the price for the chaotic handling of some half a million passport applications, which took up to four months to process instead of the usual three weeks.

A parliamentary report earlier recommended the passport office lose its stand-alone status and that some applicants be refunded. The report also said it was "a mistake" in the first place to have closed overseas passport offices - including the one in Hong Kong.

Home Secretary Theresa May said yesterday the office would cease to exist as an executive agency from Wednesday, with government ministers assuming direct oversight of it.

"I have considered the review and relevant Cabinet Office guidance and decided that it should be brought into the Home Office and report directly to ministers," May said in a statement.

"As the events of the summer showed, it is essential that [the passport office] is run as efficiently as possible and is as accountable as possible … I believe these changes will put [it] in a stronger position to do so."

Keith Vaz, chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, said: "They have delivered a shamefully poor service to the estimated 5.6 million British citizens living abroad.