Cost of help for Britons in trouble abroad lifts passport price to £72
Richard Ford, Home Correspondent
The cost of a UK passport is to rise for the third time in less than two years to £72, the Government announced yesterday.
The increase means that the projected price of the planned identity card will be more than £100.
Charges for the ten-year travel document have risen by 70 per cent in less than two years and 300 per cent since Labour came to power a decade ago. The latest increase was blamed on a steep rise in charges added to the passport fee to pay for consular services at British embassies and diplomatic missions around the world.
Lord Triesman, a Foreign Office minister, said that the additional charges would help to fund services for Britons who get into trouble overseas.
“We have recently implemented a number of significant improvements to our consular services, from better training of staff to the newly built consular crisis centre, which responds to major incidents involving British nationals such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters,” he said.
“Whether dealing with the victims of crime, sickness or other unforeseen circumstances, consular officials are at the forefront of providing assistance to distressed British nationals.
“The consular premium increase will allow us to continue to provide world-class consular support and to invest in bettering that service.”
Until December 2005, a UK passport cost £42, meaning that when the new charge comes into effect in October, there will have been a 70 per cent rise in 22 months.
The price of other types of passports will also rise in October with an adult’s same-day “premium” service increasing from £114.50 to £123 and a fast-track collect service from £100.50 to £109.
A child’s five-year passport will rise by £1 to £46 and a fast-track adult passport, which is processed in a week, from £91 to £97.
The previous set of rises last October was to pay for new security measures, including a digital photograph in a micro-chip stored in the passport.
They also funded enhanced background checks on applicants and new face-to-face interviews for first-time passport applicants.
Yesterday’s announcement of a rise in the cost of the passport is likely to result in the charge for the combined passport and identity card being more than £100.
The Government has already said that the cost of the standalone card – without a passport – will be £30.
Phil Booth, the national co-ordinator of NO2ID, a campaign that opposes the ID card, said: “Home Office excuses and dodgy accounting cannot conceal the outrageous expense of its ID scheme and passport holders should expect further rises as the cost spirals even further out of control.”
David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “This is yet more evidence that the Bill for the Government’s £20 billion ID card project is to be met squarely by the taxpayer.
“It is shocking that they are having to pick up the tab for a white elephant that will do nothing to improve public safety and may well make it worse.”
Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: “This latest price hike suggests the Government is going full steam ahead with its cynical plan to bury ID card costs inside each and every passport.”
Cost compared
Austria £47
Australia £77
France £40.70
Germany £40
Iceland* £162
Japan £108
New Zealand* £123
Norway £87
Switzerland* £218
US £54
*passports in these countries are only valid for five years, so this is the cost of two five-year passports equivalent to one UK ten-year passport
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/p ... 940204.ece