Campaigners welcome decision to scrap citizenship fees for vulnerable children
Nina Jacobs
Sunday, May 29, 2022
A children’s rights charity has welcomed news that the Home Office is to waive its child citizenship fee for families that cannot afford it and to offer an exemption for all children in care.
Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) said the move followed a long campaign it and other organisations had run, calling for the high cost of application fees for children wanting to be British citizens to be addressed.
Groups such as Amnesty International have accused the government of profiting from families that are asked to pay a £1,012 fee per child, of which they claim nearly £600 profit is made by the Home Office.
The CCLC says it works with many children that are by law entitled to UK citizenship but are being prohibited from applying due to the high costs involved.
“This has significant implications for their identity, their entitlements, the opportunities and careers they can pursue, whether they can travel and their democratic participation,” said Michelle Elcombe, CCLC supervising solicitor and lead on its child citizenship service.
Elcombe said the move would also impact on the lives of children in care, with latest figures showing at least one in 10 looked-after children in England are non-British.
“We are very pleased in particular that local authorities will no longer have to pay an application fee to register a looked-after child as British.
“We have long called for this change which will make a real difference in resolving the nationality issues of children in care,” she said.
The issue of high application fees has come under increasing scrutiny culminating in legal action brought by the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens.
In February last year, the Court of Appeal found that the government had breached its duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children resulting in a review by the Home Secretary into possible changes to the system.
Elcome said that while the new policy represents a “hard-won step forward”, it would work with other organisations to monitor the implementation of an affordability test.
“We stand with others in maintaining that the Home Office should not be making a profit from any child’s entitlement to citizenship," she said.
"We urge the government to recognise the significant public interest in ensuring that every child’s citizenship rights are practically obtainable.”
