The Wakefield by-election proves our country is crying out for change and Labour can deliver - Rachel Reeves

With a break on the horizon, the last thing we want to face are delays getting off the ground.

But frustratingly, that’s exactly what we’re seeing.

In recent weeks, I’ve had an overwhelmingly number of emails from constituents contacting me about delays and problems renewing their passports.

Figures now show that some holiday goers are having to wait 10 weeks to renew their passports. With only three weeks to go until the school holidays, that’s quite scary.

Along with hours and hours of waiting in airports and long snaking queues at Dover, passport delays are just another symptom of the Tory Backlog Britain we are living through.

And it isn’t just holidays being hit.

Waiting times for A&E, cancer, dentistry and mental health services are getting longer and longer. Last week, I visited Leeds General Infirmary with Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, to hear about progress on the new hospital development which the Government had promised them.

Despite the fantastic work the team at the LGI are doing driving the project forward – as well as their own brilliant innovations across the board – the promised hospital is still a hole in the ground. It joins the list of the 40 hospitals promised by Boris Johnson which are still nowhere to be seen. And the bottlenecks don’t stop there either.

With a build-up in the courts, prosecutions and justice for victims are also on hold.

Everything from driving licences to major infrastructure projects are delayed.

But this isn’t just poor government planning and chaos – though that does play a key role.

It’s the symptom of 12 years of Tory economic mismanagement, trapping us in a spiral of low wages, low growth, higher taxes – and because of that a lack of delivery.

If the Tories had grown our economy over the last decade, our public services wouldn’t have been so run into the ground.

If we were still growing at the same rate as under the last Labour government, we’d have £50bn more to spend on our public services without having to raise a single tax – and people would on average be earning £11,000 a year more.

We can’t keep going on this low growth path – lurching from crisis to crisis, exposed and with no plan for the future, falling behind our competitors and seeing the pound fall to new lows.

That’s why I’ve been setting out how Labour will build a stronger, more secure economy.

That starts with better energy security – with our plans to insulate homes and boost renewables and nuclear, so we are less reliant on imported oil and gas.

It means securing our supply chains with our plans to buy, make and sell more in Britain, and fixing the holes in the Government’s patchwork Brexit deal so we can cut red tape and get exporting again.

And it means helping our high streets back on their feet, with an immediate cut in business rates over the next year funded by a one-off increase in the digital services tax for online giants.

Then we can grow our economy – through measures like our Climate Investment Pledge to build the green industries of the future, and by making Britain the best place to start and grow a business.

Labour is leading on the vision that we need to get our economy back on course.

And last week’s by-election victory in Wakefield bringing the brilliant Simon Lightwood to Parliament, proves that our country is crying out for change, and that Labour is the party that will deliver it.

The result was the best we have had in the constituency for more than 20 years – and only the second time we have won a by-election from opposition in a quarter of a century. That didn’t happen by accident.

Since the horror of the last general election, we have rolled up our sleeves and focused on listening to the public and changing the Labour party. We’ve rooted out the poison of anti-Semitism, shown unshakeable support for Nato, forged a new relationship with business, shed unworkable or unaffordable policies and created an election machine capable of taking on the Conservatives.

Being able to win again has taken more than two years of hard graft from Keir Starmer and all those who ache to see the transformation a Labour government would bring the country we love.

And out on the doors in Wakefield in recent weeks, I heard more and more how people feel the Labour party is ready to bring the change and security families want to see.

The call for change we saw in Wakefield is not new.

Until recently, the Conservatives were pretending they could deliver it. But instead of getting on with delivering for the people, they have focused entirely on saving Boris Johnson’s job.

The days where the Prime Minister and his inner circle could get away with breaking their promises and the law without consequence, or taking voters for granted are over.

They now face a credible Labour party: a government-in-waiting with a plan to deliver on the country’s demands.