Jack Straw's announcement that passport prices are increasing by a third has left travellers wondering when they will stop paying for governmental incompetence.

We first shelled out as taxpayers. A new computer system, designed to improve the efficiency of Britain's passport offices, cost millions of pounds. Its initial failure began the problems that led to a summer of chaos for many travellers.

Ministers cannot be blamed directly for that. But they do shoulder responsibility for turning a difficult situation into a full blown crisis.

Home Office incompetence ensured that extra passport regulations were introduced at the same time as the new computer system was installed. It was a recipe for bedlam. That is exactly what followed.

A huge backlog in passport applications quickly built up. Joining individual travellers in the queue were families forced to purchase separate passports for their children under the new law.

Those who were going to European Union countries had to wait alongside people going further afield. We were once assured that EU membership would allow us to travel freely without the need for official documents. This panacea has never materialised, of course, and the withdrawal of the temporary European visitors passport means it is now as difficult to cross borders on this continent as on any other.

In human terms, the passport pandemonium meant anxiety and misery for thousands of Britons. Some lost their holidays. Many more were put through the enormous strain of not knowing whether their passports would arrive in time. So it is fair to say that the British traveller had truly paid the price of ministerial incompetence. Needless to say, no ministers did: not one felt the need to resign.

And now Home Secretary Mr Straw has announced that we must pay again. The price of passports is to rise by an inflation-busting third. This breaks the Government's promise that no ordinary British traveller would have to pay for the passport fiasco.

We have no choice but to hand over the money. But the Government should realise that it, too, will pay the price - in lost trust among the electorate.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.