The cost of a passport is just stupid

[SoloTripSoloVibes]

That’s it really.

£94.50 for the actual passport, which is alright, I suppose.

£10 for the pictures because you need the fancy digital codes now and can’t just have a picture

£10 for guaranteed postage of the old one back to them, because of course they can’t just have a database that they update to say that one has expired or been replaced.

£115 in total! Bring on the days that it becomes totally digital.

The only thing you have to pay for is the passport. It’s not particularly cheap as an upfront cost but it’s still a reasonable price. You don’t need to have a digital code for photos, whatever that is, you just take your own photos and upload them. You don’t need to pay a huge amount for postage. And your old passport is sent back to you. I don’t see why general taxpayers should have to pay for your passport. Travelling abroad is a privilege and not a basic human right.

I agree with 90% of this, but one of the problems we have in the U.K. is that the only proof of right to work here people can get is a passport. Driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and so on are not records of citizen entitlements.

This is why governments keep bringing up ID cards every few years, so passports can be for traveling abroad and Britons can prove their rights and entitlements without having to get passports. But a lot of people would rather prove their identified with a passport + drivers’ license/recent utility bills.

Gosh, take a second to look up the cost of, off the top of my head, French, German, Greek, Italian and Turkish passports, and you will see it isn't limited to the 'anglosphere'.

And quite a lot of systems that sit behind it to make sure they're issuing the books to the right people with the right information.

A US Passport costs the equivalent of £98. French passport costs 86 euros.

My Irish one would have been reasonably cheap if I lived in Ireland but the adds on of postage made it more expensive.

UK is not out of line with other countries.

its not just the document, its the production of the specialist pages and the management of the use of the document. If you don't want to pay for it, don't have one.

Yup. You have to have a passport, but you have to pay through the nose for it

Can't you just renew in your maiden name

If you can afford to holiday abroad you can afford to pay for the cost of passport.

It’s a stealth tax on travel, in keeping with the green agenda.

Only half joking. But wasn’t it about £15 in 1980?

Bring on the days when it becomes totally digital and the government decides you can't have a passport because your social score is too low.

Are you sure? Gov.uk clearly states that a UK or Irish birth certificate is a valid proof of right to work if you don’t have a passport…

A birth certificate can also be used to show right to work in the UK.

Not to prove right to work you don't if you're a British or Irish citizen.

"If you’re a British or Irish citizen

If you do not have a passport or passport card, you can prove your right to work with one of the following:

• a UK birth or adoption certificate
• an Irish birth or adoption certificate
• a certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen

You must also give your employer an official letter or document from a previous employer or a government agency. For example, you could use a letter from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or the Social Security Agency in Northern Ireland. The letter must show your name and National Insurance number."

https://www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work

when i had to do similar, I got a cerified copy. Mine was done through the local jobcentre (I know, weird but that's what I was told to do) but you might enquire whether a copy certified by a public notary would be acceptable.

I’m afraid that’s not true. Anyone born in the U.K. has a birth certificate (it gives access to GPs and education), that doesn’t automatically make everyone born here a British citizen. To be a citizen, at least one of your parents must be British. (That’s been modernised fairly recently - it used to be it could be either parent IF they were married, but in an unmarried couple only the mother being British could pass on British citizenship to the child).

That’s easy to game - there are lots of people born here who aren’t citizens!

https://www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work

If it isn’t true that you can use a birth certificate then you better let the government know.

YABU, I did my own picture just a few weeks ago. Website said it was very poor and would be rejected. Was fine.

It lasts 10 years so it's about £10 per year. It's nothing compared to the price of holidays!

That's a government page I linked to.

ETA cross-posted with Simonjt

Not all of us use passports to travel abroad. As an adult who is medically unable to drive it's the only way to get acceptable ID

I'm not sure you can compare like for like on that though because of the arrival of expensive biometrics and having to try to make the passports as hard to forge as they can. 1980 was a far more innocent, far less technological place.

Overpriced? £11.50 per year for the right to travel the world? Less than 2 cups of coffee!

Indeed, I was being ironic, But it’s a case of this marvellous technology making everything more complicated and expensive: so fully digital passports probably will not be cheaper. How much did that infamous app that would prevent lockdown (and didn’t) cost again?