Thanks @ericsbrother for the advice. It's a tricky situation because we could cancel it and then it just turns up tomorrow in the post. I think if it doesn't arrive in another week's time we will go down the route of cancelling it and reporting it as lost. If we go down that route we will fully want the DVLA being held to account, however unlikely that is to happen. We would definitely try to get our local MP involved in that case. <rant> It is ridiculous that they can just strip foreign nationals of their original legal documents and not take any of the blame. I guess it's also ridiculous that we live in the 21st century and yet because we haven't got a bit of plastic it causes all sorts of problems. </rant>

So we made the mistake of applying for my wife's provisional driving license just before the lockdown started. We sent my wife's BRP and passport as special delivery which the DVLA received at the end of March. This then got rejected at the end of April which we assume was due to Covid-19 although no reason is provided. It is now the end of May and we are still waiting for the documents to be returned and have no way of contacting the DVLA as they are short staffed and only speaking to key workers at the moment. We've contacted the post office and even our local council to see if they can help but so far everyone has understandably said it's only the DVLA that can really do anything about it. We unfortunately did not enclose a return envelope so we believe this means they will not send the documents back as special delivery. It could be the case that they are still in transit but is a month long wait normal in these abnormal times? We have no idea what to do at this stage and are reluctant to start applying for (and paying for!) lost/stolen passports and BRPs. Is anyone else in a similar situation at the moment??