The fact that we won’t have freedom of movement. Duh.
A quick google says the average for 2007-2012 was 5,359,117 with fairly constant demand for that period - assuming the same sort of average, £500 million for the contract and a timespan of 11.5 years it works out at £8.12 per passport.
It’s paid for by everyone who applies for a passport but it’s only about 11% of the price of one - which does, indeed, seem reasonable - but it prompts one to ask why the heck the government charges £72.50 for an item that costs less than a tenner to actually produce.
With respect Paul those figures are years out of date and with the UK population increasing the numbers of new passports issued each year is only going to go up.
As for the current cost of £72.50, it’s still lower than countries such as the USA.
Fair enough - another go with google turned up a figure of about 6.8 million for 2016 - the unit cost, assuming that the 500 million covers everything is in the £6-8 ballpark, neither of us are actually disagreeing here 
Also the £500 million is more than covered by passport fees, no no great argument that it “isn’t a problem”
It doesn’t matter that the US charge more - but the £72.50 is starting to look like a bit of a rip off. EDIT: Not that the French are any different - I see it is 86€ for a French passport; I’ll bet it doesn’t cost the French government that much either.
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The money would be put to better use on the introduction of identity cards for all UK citizens, especially since we are told by the government that it intends to take full control of immigration as a result of Brexit. It would also allow eligibility for NHS and social services to be checked, which is not the case at present. If they had done this years ago, the Calais jungle problem would never have arisen. Do they imagine that migrants are attracted by England’s green and pleasant land?
Not sure the British would accept identity cards though.
Smacks a bit of the over-controlling State.
The real hoot about this is that the passport standard was set by the Yanks. It was subsequently accepted by the EU. Now of course we all know that the UK can have any colour it bally well likes!! So all this Brexiteer excitement stoked up by the ??? May is a load of tosh!!!
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Of course you could do a much better job.
I have just discovered that in France we give blue passports to dogs. Expect the occasional smirk as you pass through immigration!
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Aren’t all pet passports across Europe blue?
LOL! Somebody explain…
Anyway…I recently renewed my UK passport (only took 6 days start to finish - amazing service!) and I’m sooooooo pleased it’s a European red one and I’ll have it for the next 10 years!
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£72.50 looks like a bargain compared to the cost of renewing a Canadian passport. If you live abroad, it’s £110 for a five-year version and £150 for a 10-year job. On the bright side, they are (or were) very dark blue, almost black, similar to my late mother’s UK passport issued in 1954. It carried a stamp splendidly pronouncing her a “British Subject: Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies”. Those were the days.
Yep - you can’t beat a bit of enforced colonisation…
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How do you get a dog to sit in a photo booth, not smile, not move and above all no ears or hair in front of the eyes ? 
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Stick a bonio or the like to the glass screen and say “stay”.
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