The extortionate Home Office application fee to register as a British citizen is currently at £936 for children, £1,121 for young adults and £1,236 for those young persons applying to naturalise.
There is no fee waiver or reduction on a registration application fee for those young persons who cannot afford to pay this very high fee – not even for the many such young persons who have a right to register by entitlement. There is also no fee exemption for those young persons being looked after by the local authority. Yet, it costs the Home Office £272 to process a child’s British citizenship application, which means the Home Office is making a profit of £664 on each application (see Government impact assessment).
Missing from the Government impact assessment is any assessment relating to young people’s right to register – a right given by Parliament under the British Nationality Act 1981.
Most children unable to register as British citizens because they can’t afford this extortionate fee are children born in the UK or children who have lived in the UK from a very young age.
We are grateful to Baroness Lister and Lord Alton’s powerful speech on the exorbitant Home Office’s application registration fee during the Immigration Bill 2015 debate.