by Bethany Rielly

THE Home Office has lost a legal bid to continue charging families £1,000 to register children for British citizenship after the court of appeal upheld that the fee is unlawful. 

A judge ruled that ministers had failed to assess the impact of the exorbitant fee on children’s rights, adding that for some families it was “difficult to see how the fee could be afforded at all.” 

Families are charged £1,012 to register their children for citizenship despite the administration costs of the procedure only amounting to £372. The Home Office uses the remaining £640 profit to cross-subsidise the immigration system.