Strikers wreck 150,000 holidays as British families face anxious wait for passports

It means thousands of families face an anxious wait to see if their travel documents arrive before they are due to go on holiday.

The backlog will take 'well into August' to clear, according to the union involved.

The three-day strike by passport officials has left a backlog of 150,000 applications which could take until well into August to clear

The Tories have warned that Gordon Brown's crumbling authority means such strikes will become more common.

'This is the worst kind of throwback to the 1970s,' said immigration spokesman Damian Green.

'A trade union picking the time for a strike to create the maximum misery for the general public, and a Labour Government in the pay of the unions unable to deal with them properly.

'Sadly, we can expect more of this behaviour.'

The three-day strike by the Public and Commercial Services Union saw passport staff walk out at all seven regional offices, as well as 68 local interview offices.

And although the strike is officially over, efforts to deal with the backlog are likely to be hampered by the union's threat of more strikes and a work-to-rule.

Holiday plans: Families trying to renew or get replacement passports face an anxious wait to see if the arrive before their summer holidays

There are fears this means that the Identity and Passport Service will be unable to meet its own target of dealing with cases within three to four weeks.

Workers are furious over an average pay offer of 2.5 per cent - with the longest-serving staff receiving no pay rise at all for the fifth year in a row - as well as plans to close offices.

Mark Serwotka of the Public and Commercial Services Union said: 'The unprecedented action has demonstrated the need for the Government and employers to start dealing with the issue of below-inflation pay and the impact that real-term pay cuts are having on hard-working families.

'The action taken is not one taken lightly, and should be seen as a last resort by a workforce facing unprecedented cuts to their standard of living.'

He added: 'With thousands of civil servants on the minimum wage, pay cuts combined with job cuts are hitting some of the lowest-paid, and sapping morale.

'Further disruption and a ballot for action across the whole of the civil service can be avoided, but only if the Government moves to review its policy of capping public sector pay.'

Union bosses claimed that more than 2,000 passport staff stayed away from work during the strike - which marked the culmination of ten days of action by civil servants.

The Home Office disputed the figure, claiming only around 1,000 workers joined the strike, or around a third of the workforce.

A spokesman for the Identity and Passport Service acknowledged that a backlog had built up, but sought to play down the impact of the strike yesterday.

He said the service normally processes 115,000 passport applications every week, meaning that the backlog - which he put at around 140,000 cases - represented around six days' work.

But with union members threatening a widespread work-to-rule, which would rule out any overtime,

it was unclear last night whether the offices would catch up that quickly.

Those who apply in person in an 'emergency situation' due to urgent travel plans can still obtain a passport.

However, that applies only to renewals and does not cover firsttime passports, name changes or replacing lost, stolen or damaged documents.

The strike threatens a repeat of the chaotic scenes in 1999, when the implementation of a disastrous new computer system left more than half a million people waiting up to seven weeks for their passports.

Many had to cancel their holidays and thousands more were forced to queue at passport offices to obtain their travel documents.