More than 9 million people are expected to apply for a passport this year.
The Passport Office said it was seeing "unprecedented demand" as more than 5 million people delayed applying for passports during the pandemic. The eyewatering figure was revealed as it responded to "considerable press coverage of people facing holiday cancellations or travel disruption due to waiting times for passports".
Publishing a statement online, the Passport Office said: "there is no backlog in passport processing as a result of the coronavirus". It also said it anticipates 9.5 million British passport applications will be made this year, and that in March alone staff had processed more than one million new passport applications - the highest output on record.
