Children’s Registration Fee Ruled Unlawful (now ruled lawful by the UK Supreme Court 02-02-2022)

The current fee of £1,012 for the registration of children as British namely under sections 1(3) and 3(1) of the BNA 1981 has been ruled unlawful.

Delivering the ruling judge Mr Justice Jay said the Home Office "failed to have regard to the best interests" of children affected.

The department said it will consider the ruling's implications "carefully."

This could mean the fee will be reduced to £372, the fee to administer such applications.

The High Court Judgement is available at - https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/proj ... me-office/

Policy paper on Home Office immigration and nationality fees: 20 February 2020

No change in "Nationality registration as a British citizen - child" is foreseen, with it remaining constant at £1012.

£1,012 child citizenship fee confirmed unlawful by Court of Appeal

However, don't get your hopes too high. There may be a further appeal to the UK Supreme Court.

If the case were to be left as it were now, the Secretary of State would have to undertake a review of the fee regulations and, in so doing, give consideration to the children’s best interests. Call me cynical, but she would likely end up concluding that the registration fee should remain unchanged.

Thankfully this is not where this case ends. The Court of Appeal has already granted permission for the claimants to appeal to the Supreme Court on the ultra vires ground.

Further updates

Freemovement: Supreme Court upholds government’s right to set child citizenship fees as it chooses

UK Supreme Court judgment: R(PRCBC) v SSHD

The UK Supreme Court (in a unanimous judgment from a five member bench) has overturned the Court of Appeal and the High Court judgments above and has ruled that the child citizenship/registration fee of £1012 is legal.

Some of the language of the judgment (in particular Paragraph 51) can also be interpreted to suggest that the courts could take a much less active role in matters that the courts deem to be policy/political in nature.

51. The appropriateness of imposing the fee on children who apply for British citizenship under section 1(4) of the 1981 Act is a question of policy which is for political determination. It is not a matter for judges for whom the question is the much narrower one of whether Parliament has authorised the Secretary of State to set the impugned fee at the level which it has been set.

Those who have been holding out on registering their children as British citizens in expectation that the fees will be reduced may want to now register their children as British citizens before any future increases of fees. They will almost certainly not be coming down.

As an aside, for the lawyers among you, apparently the judgment also lays out a more textual approach to interpretation of statute law and also touches on the use of parliamentary material to construe primary legislation. Faint shades of Pepper v Hart. This last paragraph is based on a thread on Twitter. I have not yet read the judgment in detail on these points.

Not sure this has been posted before - applicable from 16 June 2022:
Caseworker guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... r-guidance
Summary/comment: https://freemovement.org.uk/children-ca ... ship-fees/
Note if applying for this the circumstances have to be fully documented by the applicants.

@alterhase58, I have merged your post into this sticky as it is directly related to the topic (registration fees for children) and the Freemovement article touches on this topic (these court judgments).