£1,012 fee can now be waived under Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
The Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC) yesterday published a useful practitioners' note with an overview of last week's significant changes to the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018 regarding the fee for the registration of children as British citizens.
You can download PRCBC's brief 5-page practitioners' note here.
The new Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 were laid before Parliament last Thursday and give the Home Secretary the power to waive the current £1,012 fee for a child to be registered as a British citizen.
PRCBC noted in a press release last week that under the new Regulations, the Government will waive the fee for children whose parents and guardians cannot afford it. Children looked after by a local authority will be totally exempt from the fee.
As PRCBC highlighted in its practitioners' note, the Government's decision follows a review by the Home Secretary that was carried out after the courts ruled the registration fee had been set without consideration of children's best interests.
PRCBC has led the campaign against the fee, and the organisation's CEO, Solange Valdez-Symonds, welcomed the waiver as an important step forward.
According to the New Statesman, the Home Office has made £240 million in profit from the fees since 2010.
The Home Office last week published new guidance on the fee waiver. It explains: "The applicant and parent(s) are considered unable to pay the fee when they do not have sufficient funds at their disposal to pay the required fee after meeting their essential living needs, and continuing to meet any other child's essential needs, such as housing and food. This is the primary assessment for whether a fee waiver should be granted."
Parents will need to provide "clear and compelling evidence" and "credibly demonstrate" that they are unable to afford the fee.
PRCBC notes that income, expenditure, savings, and assets will be considered by the Home Office, with financial information likely to be required for a six-month period up to the request for the fee waiver.
In its practitioners' note, PRCBC said: "The new fee exemptions and waiver should assist many children currently excluded from their citizenship rights to avoid this alienation continuing. It will nonetheless be necessary to monitor their effectiveness in practice. However, for children who do not qualify for an exemption or waiver, the fee remains at far above the administrative cost of registration. Given that registration is by way of statutory right, it continues to be an unacceptable barrier to children's registration and financial exploitation of the children affected. It can be expected to continue to exclude some children, particularly children whose circumstances of relative poverty are not readily demonstrated and in circumstances that are beyond the control or influence of the child."
Kevin Foster MP, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Safe and Legal Migration, gave the following information in a statement to the House of Commons last week:
"Today I am laying before the House an amendment to the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018, which includes changes in respect of applications made by children seeking to register as British Citizens.
"Since 2018, the Home Office has charged a fee of £1,012 to those under the age of 18 who are seeking to register as British citizens under the provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981 (BNA). This fee has been set in line with Section 68(9) of the Immigration Act 2014, which details the factors the Home Secretary may take into account when setting fees. These include the costs of processing an application, the benefits that are likely to accrue to any person in connection with the application, and the costs of exercising wider immigration and nationality functions.
"In keeping with the requirements of this legislative framework, the department has pursued an approach over the last decade of progressively increasing the role fees play in funding the borders and migration system. This self-funding model serves to ensure those who benefit from the system contribute to its effective operation and maintenance, while reducing reliance on taxpayer funding. This in turn helps to ensure the system is able to support the Home Office's priority outcomes, including enabling the legitimate movement of people and goods to support economic prosperity, and tackling illegal migration, removing those with no right to be here and protecting the vulnerable.
"However, as Section 71 of the Immigration Act 2014 makes clear, this does not limit the Secretary of State's duty under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act (BCIA) 2009 to make arrangements to ensure immigration and nationality functions are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the UK. On 18 February 2021, the Court of Appeal, following a case brought by the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC), found that the Secretary of State had breached that duty in setting the fee in Regulations in 2017 and 2018. The Home Secretary accepted the Court's findings and committed to reviewing the fee in line with her duties under Section 55 of the BCIA 2009.
"On 2 February 22 the Supreme Court handed down its judgment on an appeal made by PRCBC in relation to the status of the 2017 and 2018 Regulations that set the fee charged to children to register as British citizens, which held that the regulations were not 'ultra vires' and the principles that underpin our fees system had been lawfully applied. Following the Supreme Court's judgment, the Home Secretary was able to conclude her review of the fee and has decided, as a result, to introduce changes in relation to child citizenship fees in order to better facilitate access to citizenship for children who may face difficulties in paying the fee. The changes are the introduction of a fee waiver for child citizenship applications on the basis of affordability, and a fee exception for children who are looked after by a Local Authority. In parallel, the Home Secretary has also decided to maintain the £1,012 fee at its current level, reflecting the substantial number of applications that the department does receive under the current fees regime and the critical role income from these applications plays in supporting the sustainable funding of a borders and migration system that is critical to delivery of the Home Office's key objectives.
"By introducing the affordability based waiver, our aim is to ensure the fee does not serve as a significant practical barrier to the acquisition of British citizenship for children who are eligible to apply, where the unaffordability of that fee can be demonstrated. This recognises the particular value British citizenship can have for children who have been born in or spent a substantial part of their lives in the UK, particularly those intangible benefits in terms of the sense of identity and belonging which develop during an individual's formative years, and the impact this can have on their wider wellbeing. At the same time, it reflects our belief that a waiver offers the most effective means of facilitating applications from children for whom affordability of the fee does represent a practical barrier, while balancing against the wider financial impact on the department, relative to other options. In addition, the specific fee exception that is being introduced will serve to relieve an administrative and financial burden from Local Authorities, while enabling the department to work more proactively with them to register children who are eligible and where it is in their best interests.
"Further details on how to apply for the waiver and exception will be set out in published guidance, with applications open from 16 June. I hope colleagues will join me in welcoming these changes, which I believe represent a positive step in responding to the concerns raised by members of this House as well as other stakeholders in relation to children's access to British citizenship."