Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will review the cost of (a) applying for and (b) renewing a passport for people under the age of 18 who are participating in a school trip.

In line with HM Treasury’s Managing Public Money Guidance, the passport office reviews all fees annually to ensure they only recover the full cost of providing the service which includes a contribution for consular services and costs for processing passport holders at UK borders.

Reviews also include the fee charged for services such as collective passports, which are available for various group trips including schools, and where used there is a single charge to the school and as such, no charge for parents of individual under-18s attending the trip.

Where any fee concessions are made to particular groups it means that the other groups of applicants would have to subsidise those groups by paying higher fees.