The £1,000 fee charged by the Home Office for a child to register as a British citizen is unlawful, the Court of Appeal has upheld in a landmark case.

The judge said ministers had failed to assess and consider the impact of this fee on children and their rights, pointing out that for some families it was “difficult to see how the fee could be afforded at all”.

The Home Office currently charges £1,012 for a child to register for citizenship, instead of £372. The department says it uses the remaining £640 extra illegal fees to cross-subsidise the immigration system.

In December 2019, a High Court judge ruled that the fee was unlawful after finding a “huge of evidence” that it prevented many children from being registered for citizenship, leaving them “alienated, second-best and not fully assimilated into the culture and social circle of the UK”. #ukhomeoffice