Passport Renewal

[ordbrae]

I decided to renew my passport after a lapse of five years.The issuing authority sent me the necessary forms along with a list of mandatory requirements.
I went on line to ascertain the cost.The heading said''Free passports for over eighties''further qualified by''If born before 2nd September 1929''I was born in December of that year so I miss out by four months;renewal will cost me £72.50;this agrieves me somewhat because as of now passports are free only for applicants over 83 and if the 2/9/29 deadline is'nt progressed everyone will be too old to need a passport.Is this a bureaucratic oversite.All comments welcomed.

[spudqueen]

I think this date was chosen so that war veterans would be able to get free passports to go over to France, The Netherlands and other places where comemerations were taking place. This was brought in as many of the veterans were getting on a bit and wanted to revisit places they had fought in. So, no I don't think it's a bureaucratic oversight as it was not intended that the date would be moved, as all war veterans should have been included.

[ubasses]

This was bought in in 2004 to allow war veterans to go overseas to revisit places or people they met during their service . The date of 1929 was chosen to just cover these people. It will probably never be changed as there cannot be any younger people who served in the war, as they 1929 would make them 10 at the start.

[ABerrant]

To (officially) reiterate all of the above:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN03201.pdf