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

ziggy2004

I paid £45 for my sons British passport and £38 for his Dutch one (which would have been slightly cheaper if I had applied for it in Holland I believe)

His Dutch one is a chipped passport btw.

A Dutch chipped passport in Holland costs a maximum of £32 but is only valid for 5 years. Still it is more expensive here in the UK

Merlycat

Child passports already cost £45. I couldn't get anyone at the passport office to explain to me why they were 2/3's the cost but only lasted 1/2 the time!!

ginger_nuts

anyone who has dual nationality should check the price for the other country .
Childrens and pensioners passports can be sometimes cheaper in other countrys

CharleneUK

Maybe they are trying to sort out the fact that it was more for a childs passport (which has to be renewed every 5 years.) Previously, it would cost a lot more to have a childs passport (although I can't remember it ever being as cheap as £34?)

pjmony

Politicians love to 'spin' or re-write history.
The first big rise in the passport prices came as a result of Siemens trying to computerise them. They made a complete **** up but still ended up getting payed for their work.

Last year I heard a politician including it in his list of 'successful' gov't computer projects!

The reason people suggest getting a screened holder for the RFID passports is that hackers have already demonstrated they can read the data off these things and get around the encryption. (in other words they don't need to take the passport off you - just get very close)

nedski

The whole thing is an absolute con. When Labour took office in 1997 a standard 10-year adult passport was £18. Now it is rising to £72, so the cost has exactly quadrupled in 10 years! That's a little bit above inflation I think.

And when ID card cost gets added on top it will go up to at least £93, but noone will be surprised if it tops the £100 mark. It's clear that the government are just increasing the cost in dribs and drabs so that the increase imposed by ID cards won't appear so much when it happens.

The government are supposed to be there to serve us, but doesn't everyone feel we're just serving them and their demands these days?

The whole thing is getting way out of control, not to mention all the problems with ID cards etc. One thing we can all do is get on to our MP's (www.writetothem.com) and tell them just what we think of the spiralling costs and the ever increasing intrusion into our lives this government is bringing in. Make them realise this is an issue that is important, and we won't take it lying down.

N.

daveo138

Soco1, the reason that your scanners need the passport to be very close in order to read is that they may be very low-powered, to reduce the possibility of picking up a signal from other passports in close proximity.

My passport expired early last year and I heard that the price was rising on 1st February, from £43 (I think) to £52. I logged on to the Passport Agency website and requested the renewal pack, but they didn't send it out until AFTER the price increase! How annoyed was I?

As my parents were born in Ireland, I am entitled to hold an Irish passport, so guess what I did? The Irish passport cost me just over £50 and involved a bit more work, but I was so incensed at the delay in the Passport Agency sending the renewal pack, that I didn't care! It also means that I don't have to jump through hoops for the Identity checks etc.

moonrakerz

CFC wrote: »

After all, exactly how much terrorism do we have in the UK now compared to all the IRA stuff in the seventies?
Answer: a lot less.

This country is becoming insane,and the post above about needing photo id to GET photo id sums it up. It's time ordinary people stood up to be counted and to say NO.

It is also worth pointing out that the London tube bombers were British citizens with British passports. They would have held perfectly legal, valid UK ID cards if they had waited a couple of years.

Similarly, the World Trade Centre hijackers were in the USA on perfectly valid paperwork, just like you and I when we visit DisneyWorld.

This whole thing is purely for the Government to gather as much info about the citizens (only the legal ones of course !) of this country, as it can. The mania about ID is creeping into everything; I am about to move house from one town in Wiltshire to another, I have to "produce ID" to change my address in the County Library !! It doesn't seem to occur to them that I can already use my card in any Library in the County without changing my address; doh !
It's a farce, a very costly farce !

jo_b_2

MSE_Martin wrote: »

On 4 October 2007, passport fees will increase by £1 for children, bringing this to £35.

As other people have pointed out, the current price for a child's passport is £45. Wonder if it is going to go up by another £1 in October?

http://www.passport.gov.uk/fees.asp

kitaj

I know this is a money saving site and goodness knows I want to save money. However, at the risk of being controversial, compared with other labour intensive charges, I don't think passports are particularly expensive. the cost of visas for other countries as well as passports in other countries is comparabe. A US passport costs $67 PLUS a $30 'execution fee' (don't ask!!) (a total of = £49). A US child's passport costs $52 plus the $30 execution fee. $12 of this is a 'Security surcharge'. An Australian passport costs $A193 (£82); a Canadian passport $90 (£42.50). Mind you a South African passport costs under a tenner so I guess we could live in the same state as South Africans but dramatically reduce our taxes .

All countries are paying the price of terrorism fear, which is the bit I really object to....as a previous poster said passports and ID cards wouldn't have stopped any of the terrorist attacks here or in the US. We really should be protesting at the huge amount of surveillance we are all subjected to and not get sidetracked by the cost of a passport, which is a symptom of the increased surveillance costs and not simply a 'stealth tax'.