Passport Office urged to raise £95 renewal fee to plug black hole

Telegraph

6 hours ago

Ministers have been urged to increase the £95 passport renewal fee in a blow for millions of Britons.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said the Passport Office should increase its fees to address a growing black hole in the department's annual budget.
The Passport Office had a budget shortfall of £223m last year and a total deficit of £916m over the last five years. The gap is currently covered through taxpayer funds but the NAO said fees should instead be increased to fill the black hole.
Higher charges would hit millions of people who renew their passport each year. There were 6.97m passports issued to Britons last year. An adult passport is valid for 10 years while a children's passport is valid for five.
The NAO, which scrutinises public spending, said the Passport Office, which is overseen by Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, should raise the cost of services in a 'reasonable time'. It did not give a figure for how much fees should rise by.
If it were to have filled its £223m black hole last year, it would have had to charge each applicant roughly £32 more based on the number of requests received. The NAO declined to comment on the estimate.
Adults must currently pay £94.50 for a new passport, while a one-day renewal costs £222.
The recommendation comes after it emerged that Brussels was considering making it more expensive for Britons to visit the EU. A €7 fee set to come into force could be raised to help the bloc cover its Covid debts, diplomatic sources have revealed.
The cost of getting a passport has already risen significantly in recent year. In February 2023, the fee for an adult passport was raised for the first time in five years by 9pc, from £75.50 to £82.50. It rose again by 7pc in 2024 before an inflation-busting increase of 6.7pc in April.
While high, Britain's fees are not unusual in Europe and the West. An adult passport costs €86 (£73) in France, €101 in Germany and $130 in the US.
The NAO argued that the long gaps between renewing a passport meant it was fairer to charge the full cost of the service upfront, rather than running a deficit and asking central government to cover it.
It said: 'Persistent deficits lead to large cumulative losses which are difficult to recover and risk creating high fees for service users in later years.
'This can create generational unfairness where services are used only periodically, such as adult passport renewals which happen every 10 years.'
The call for even higher fees came in a report by the NAO into government services, including UK Visas and Immigration, the Court & Tribunals Service and the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency.
Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, warned that some government services 'are not consistently recovering their costs – posing risks to the financial resilience of these services and fairness between users'.
The NAO found a budget shortfall of £340m across all services it looked at, with the Passport Office accounting for the lion's share.
The official audit watchdog said the department had made 'significant operational improvements' over the last few years but warned that it had not covered its costs since the 2017/18 financial year.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said: 'Cost recovery is an important mechanism to reduce the tax burden, but imbalances between fees and costs are creating risks for the resilience of public services, falling unfairly on the taxpayer to pay these differences.'
'Correct charging requires accurate data on costs and users, but the system is being hampered by a lack of monitoring and reporting from some departments, the time consuming legislative process to change fees and limited checks from HM Treasury. Better guidance and a more consistent approach on setting and amending fees and charges is also needed across government.'
A Home Office spokesman said there were 'no current plans to increase passport fees.'