Home Office makes almost £100m profit from children registering as British citizens over five years

Exclusive: By charging fees that far outweigh the administrative cost, department rakes in more than £51,600 every day from child applications – in what critics attack as 'barefaced profiteering'

Daniel, a 15-year-old who has been in the UK since the age of three, is one of thousands of children who have been unable to obtain British status because his family could not afford the soaring citizenship fees (Amnesty UK)

The Home Office has made almost £100m in profit from children registering as British citizens over the last five years, new analysis shows.

By charging fees that far outweigh the administrative cost of processing applications, the department is raking in more than £51,600 a day, and more than £361,000 per week – in what critics have attacked as “barefaced profiteering”.

The revelation comes after The Independent highlighted mounting concern the government is using the children of immigrants as “cash cows”, by charging extortionate sums for them to obtain citizenship.

The Home Office is now facing a legal challenge over the fees, which critics say are “pricing children out of their rights”.

The cost of applying for British citizenship for a child stands at £1,102, despite the administrative cost being just £372, and all application fees are non-refundable.

As 33,000 children successfully registered in 2017-18, that year the department raked in £19m over and above the costs incurred. From 2012-13 to 2017-18, the total was £94.24m.

The calculation of the total surplus generated does not include the profit made on unsuccessful registration applications by children.

The Home Office argues the revenue contributes towards the wider costs involved in running the UK’s border, immigration and citizenship system, saying the service should be “funded by those who benefit from it”.

But a significant fall in registrations over the five year period suggests high fees are preventing children from obtaining citizenship, which can restrict them from doing basic things including travelling abroad and attending college or university.

(Free Movement (Free Movement)

Not being able to register as British can also mean children are at risk of being detained and removed from the UK, including in circumstances where the Home Office is aware they are entitled to register as British if they could afford the fee.

Colin Yeo, who carried out the analysis, told The Independent: “It is impossible to justify making a profit from children when they are by law supposed to be entitled to citizenship.

“Fears that some children will lose out on citizenship because of the high fees are borne out by a significant fall in registrations over the same period that fees have more than doubled.”

Unlike in most European countries, children who are born in Britain but whose parents were not formally settled in the country at the time of their birth, are not considered British.

Daniel, a 15-year-old who has been in the UK since the age of three, was prevented from going on school trips and risks missing out on college because his mother could not afford to apply for citizenship.

He told The Independent: “It’s stopped me doing a lot of things. I felt like I was different from everyone else. You’d think me being British would be something that would come naturally, as I’ve been here as long as I can remember. It’s been really limiting.”

Amnesty International UK and the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC), who are seeking a judicial review, said the charges were “utterly shameful”.

Solange Valdez-Symonds, director at PRCBC, said: “An estimated 120,000 children in the UK who have grown up British are being charged unaffordable fees to register their citizenship rights.

“The futures of these children are slowly and silently being chipped away. Such barefaced profiteering from children by the Home Office is utterly shameful.

“No child should be denied their right to British citizenship because of a profit-making fee they cannot afford.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Fees legislation allows the Home Office to take into account the wider costs involved in running our border, immigration and citizenship system, so that those who directly benefit from it contribute to its funding.

“Fees are kept under review, and when setting new fee levels, we consider a number of factors including the cost of processing the application, likely benefits of a successful application, and the wider cost of running the border, immigration and citizenship system.

“The principle of charging at above cost for immigration and nationality fees was first approved by Parliament in 2004.”