Passport costs to increase in October; renew now if you've less than a year remaining

moonrakerz

kimevans wrote: »

AFAIK, you can only renew up to 9 months early. Unless you wanna say you lost/destroyed/defaced it.

Or perhaps you can only renew up to 9 months early & get the 9 months added on to the 10 years?

You can renew anytime but you will only get a max of 9 months "credit" for time left on the old passport.

Lugh_Chronain

Pennywise wrote: »

Initially yes, but the face-to-face and finger printing/iris recognition, etc will be introduced for renewals as well afterwards, although no date is yet confirmed. Presumably, it will depend on how successful is the system for the new applications and then on the capacity of the new offices.

How inconvenient. I’d rather wait for the postman to deliver it then to have to go all the way to the nearest passport office and wait for hours before someone sees you to process the thing. But rules are rules I suppose and all these new procedures have been put in place to prevent fraud.

Want this take up a lot of resources too? Either that or you will be waiting even longer for the thing to be processed due to the amount of people they’ll employ if they don’t employ enough that is.

NAR

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Again??????? I still haven't changed my passport from my maiden name!!!! I refuse to pay £60-£70 to have my last name changed when it's still got 6 yrs left on it!!

Know what you are saying but it might be cheaper renewing by September for 10 years, than what you will have to pay in 6 years time.

Alfie_E

See Renew for Freedom.

New passports have an RFID tag in them, so, boys and girls, remember to get a screened passport holder. An RFID tag is a small computer chip with memory and a processing unit. It also has a little looped aerial, so the information can be read at a distance.

Stephen_Leak

butterfly72 wrote: »

I've just heard on the radio that passport fees are going up on 4 October 2007. Its an increase from the £66 fee for a standard adult passport to £72. Might be worth renewing if you haven't got long left!

Not again? At this rate, criminals will be the only people that can afford them!

CFC

Lugh_Chronain wrote: »

How inconvenient. I’d rather wait for the postman to deliver it then to have to go all the way to the nearest passport office and wait for hours before someone sees you to process the thing. But rules are rules I suppose and all these new procedures have been put in place to prevent fraud.

Want this take up a lot of resources too? Either that or you will be waiting even longer for the thing to be processed due to the amount of people they’ll employ if they don’t employ enough that is.

The rules haven't been put in place to prevent fraud. They are part of the massive database that is being built up called the National Identity Register, of which the public face is Identity Cards.

Many commentators believe that the government, which was recently forced by the Information Commissioner (despite wasting our money by appealing in court against the decision) to reveal how much it was overspending on its putative plans for the NIR, is building these offices as part of their NIR project. This is also the real reason for the tremendous hike in passport prices over the last few years. The offices, once built, will not appear as part of the costs of the NIR, as they will be what is often called in business 'sunk costs'. What that means is that they will not add the costs of the offices to the project pricing plan because they already have them. Neat, eh?

The government has in their own words described the questioning involved for a new passport as 'intrusive'.
A disturbing question you might wish to ponder on - from where are they getting their 'intrusive' information? Why is the government linking up with Experian and co (credit information agencies) and running credit checks on you without your consent to gain part of this information?

The goverment has forgotten it is there to serve the people of the country. It appears to think it is there to rule the people. One would quite forget that politicians used to be entering into 'public service'.

savvy

CFC wrote: »

The goverment has forgotten it is there to serve the people of the country. It appears to think it is there to rule the people.

Wow I thought they were just there for themselves :rolleyes:

julesgr

It'll be to help pay ridiculous salaries for new staff. Our director of finance is leaving to join the service next month lol!

moonrakerz

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

Not again? At this rate, criminals will be the only people that can afford them!

The actual increase is 70% in 22 months !

CFC

Another point - how many millions of pounds of our taxes were spent on 'rebranding' the 'United Kingdom Passport Service' to the 'United Kingdom Identity and Passport Service'? Who has agreed that the government should be 'managing our identities'?

I already know who I am, thanks very much. I don't need the goverment to manage it for me, nor do I want them to. Especially when the logical outcome is a 70% increase in fees in 22 months!!!