Passport fees up 29 per cent
Monday, 24 July 2006 12:00 AM
The cost of a passport is to increase by more than 29 per cent, the government announced today.
From October 5th this year, the fee for an adult passport will rise from £51 to £66 and child passports will be up by 32 per cent to £45.
The government says the price rise is needed to cover the costs of the new ePassports, which require costly background checks and face-to-face interviews for first time adult applicants.
However, opposition parties say this signals problems to come when identity cards are introduced in 2008.
"Many people will simply not understand why they are having to pay for the government's own decision to gather biometric details for ID cards for every one of us," said Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg.
"The government must now come clean on the full costs we will all have to bear in the future for identity cards which will put even this price increase in the shade."
The new passports will contain a chip storing personal details, a scan of the holder's photograph and other security features to protect against forgery, which the government insists are necessary to bring Britain into line with international standards.
Home Office minister Joan Ryan said that by the end of the summer all new British passports would be ePassports, adding that over a million had already been issued.
The government insisted these improvements needed to be paid for through the passport fee, which they say compares favourably with prices in some other countries, with a passport in New Zealand costing £123 and in Switzerland £219.
"There is a cost to the anti-fraud measures that we are introducing, but we are clear that it is a price that must be paid to protect the integrity of our travel documents and improve the security of our borders," Ms Ryan said.
However, shadow home secretary David Davis warned: "The home secretary likes to brag about customer satisfaction with the UK passport agency.
"This first instalment of the plastic poll tax that is the ID card system will completely undermine that."
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