13/02/2018 London News

Good evening - I'm Riz Lateef.

An investigation by BBC London

reveals how much the government has

made by raising the cost

of becoming a British citizen.

It's collected more than £800

million over the past six years.

It can cost eligible applicants -

including children born in the UK -

about £1000 to register.

But we've learned it only costs

the Home Office around

£300 to process it.

They've told us the money

is reinvested to fund

the wider immigration system.

As our Home Affairs Correspondent

Nick Beake reports -

it's left some young Londoners

struggling with debt.

Samson Adiola was born

in Nigeria and came to London

with his family when he was five.

He was entitled to British

citizenship, but never took it.

But when he turned 18

he decided to apply because

if he went to university

as an international student,

he'd have to pay much more.

He then found out that

officially becoming British

would cost nearly £1,000.

It was very difficult,

definitely for my mum,

having to go around looking at where

she could get the money from.

One of the main places we got help

from was the church and they put

a substantial amount together just

to help us out.

BBC London has learned the cost

of processing applications such

as Samson's was only £260,

a quarter of what he was charged.

It's really kind of upsetting,

actually, that they are

actually doing this.

And for other people who may not

even be able to scrape

that money together,

who are entitled, or have the right

to British citizenship and who can't

put forward the application

because of the cost.

It's really frustrating.

We came for a workshop.

Some charities which help families

gain British citizenship condemned

the rising Home Office fees.

To know that you have a right

to register as a British citizen,

Parliament has given you that right

and the Secretary of State is trying

to profiteer and sell the benefit

that was given by Parliament as far

back as 1983.

It is a complete scandal.

The Home Office told us it has not

been making any profit

from these rising fees.

It said any income generated

above the actual cost of processing

an application goes into the budget

which helps protect the UK border.

And so it actually reduces

the burden on the taxpayer.

One thinktank labelled this yet

another stealth tax, although it did

argue that applicants would benefit

from British citizenship

in the long run.

These people are coming in to become

British citizens and I suppose

they should get used

to all these stealth taxes.

One more big one like this maybe

won't hurt if they get the benefit

of the National Health Service

and everything else.

Ministers stress that

for the likes of Samson,

taking British citizenship

is not compulsory.

But he wanted a guarantee he'd

be able to stay here,

although he now fears

others may also struggle

to pay for that assurance.

Nick Beake, BBC London News.

17 - that's the number of people

in the capital who've

lost their lives to knife crime

since the start of the year.

Today in a bid to help

tackle the problem -

the Mayor's promised millions

to fund youth services

in an effort to steer young

Londoners away from violence.

Charlotte Franks reports.

Some of the Londoners

who lost their lives last year

after being stabbed to death.

There were 80 victims in total.

Many were just teenagers.

For 19-year-old

Gabriel knife crime is

For 19-year-old

Gabrielle knife crime is

an issue very close to home.

Not long ago one

of my close friends on

his way home outside

the hospital got stabbed

in his face and in

the

back of his leg.

When I was on my way

to the hospital to see him I was

so scared.

I didn't know what to expect.

There has been a 23% increase

in knife crime across the capital.

Today, the Mayor met young

people at a centre in

Bermondsey where he announced he'll

be investing £45 million over the

next three years into youth

services, in the hope it

will help tackle the issue.

Having a youth centre gives young

people a place to go.

So, they're not on the streets like

getting influences from maybe

bad places.

People have the option to come

here and people have the option

to have a safe zone

to go if they need it.

The money will come from

a combination of council tax and

business rates.

But the news comes just a day

after a warning that Met

Police officer numbers could drop

to as low as 27,000.

Does it make sense to be

spending £45 million on

projects like this when we've just

heard police numbers are going to be

reduced in London?

I'm not going to apologise

for investing in young people.

I think this is an investment

for the future.

What I'm doing is investing

in policing as well.

We've had the biggest roll-out

of body-worn videos in the

world last year.

Across London.

I announced additional sums

to the police last week.

We've also ring fenced

some of that was

dealing with knife crime.

In their fight

against knife crime the

Metropolitan Police carried out dawn

raids this morning across

Westminster to confiscate

knives and target repeat

knife crime offenders.

This is about keeping our young

people safe during half term and

that's the focus of this

week's activity for us.

A lot of young people

and children are off school

and it's about keeping them safe.

But workers here in Bermondsey say

the answer to solving knife crime

begins at grass roots level

with outreach programme

begins at grass roots level

with outreach programmes

key to their success.

Charlotte Franks, BBC London News.

Ayshea Buksh has got more on this -

so how will this work in practice?

Charities and youth groups will have

to bid for the money and they will

receive a grant. The £45 billion

fund will be available over three

years, so 15 million each year, but

this isn't just about knife crime,

the mayor already has a £7 million

knife crime strategy that he's

invested in. What City Hall says is

they want to look at communities

where the cuts to the youth

services, they say, were the most

severe and also what will be central

to any successful bid is a focus on

sport, culture, citizenship,

education and volunteering.

You have

spoken to youth charities. What are

they saying to you about this?

That's right, this will be welcomed

undoubtedly by grassroots

organisations and I spoke to an

incredible youth project in Hackney

earlier this evening and they say

that while three years is great,

five years would be better because

they want to have a really good

chunk of a young person's

adolescence to be able to work with

them. Let's not forget, out of

London youth services are also under

extreme pressure as well. Sian Berry

from the London Assembly says this

is great and she hopes this will

start to repair some of the damage

that youth services across London

have suffered.

OK, Ayshea Buksh,

thank you.

Parents of up to 70 pupils have been

told they'll have to find new places

for their children this September.

It's after a free school

in West London - which has only been

open for three years -

is to close.

Emma North has the story.

A half-term get-together,

a chance to have fun

and see your friends.

But at the end of this year,

this group will split up.

Their primary school,

Floreat Brentford, is closing.

When I found out that my school

was closing, I was speechless.

The only word I said was, why?

I miss my friends and I

miss my teachers also.

Theirs is a so-called free school,

it's paid for by the government

but run by a group called

the Floreat trust.

Floreat say they They have to close

the school because they can't find

it a permanent home.

And as a result, they

can't make the finances work.

Some parents aren't convinced.

This was where it

was all meant to be.

We have been fighting with planning

permission, with the borough,

the Department for Education

and Floreat Trust for

the last three years.

This car park was earmarked

for the new school but a planning

application never went in and now

there are claims that the children

are caught up in an

entirely political row.

I think they have been a financial

guinea pig in all of this.

It was a business opportunity

they tried to make work.

They have decided that it hasn't,

so they shut it down.

The trust are blaming the Council,

the Council are blaming

the Department for Education.

We have no idea where blame

lies, but at the end

of the day it is our

children that are suffering.

No one from Floreat would

be interviewed today,

but they said a statement.

We showed this to Hounslow Council.

This is outrageous,

factually incorrect.

Had this planning application been

submitted, do you think it

would have been approved?

Subject to the planning committee

approval, yes, because it had

the support of the council.

So, were you surprised

when the application

form didn't come in?

Yes, we were expecting it

January or February.

So why are the arguments flying?

Free schools have often been

the source of bitter

political battles.

It's been very interesting watching

the free schools programme,

to see such a mundane aspect,

you might say, trying to find

premises that are suitable

to have a school being

such an obstacle.

This is a story that

simply hasn't gone away.

Government, which has a big interest

in making this look successful

and be successful as a programme,

hasn't been able

to help solve the problem better.

The parents have been

promised meetings with both

the governors and the council,

but whatever the reason

for the school's closure,

these pupils seem more keen

on playing proper games and less

on playing politics.

Time for the weather now -

so I'll say goodnight

and it's over to Phil Avery.

How is it looking?

Not great today, I will have two

Buck up otherwise you will have my

job, lots of leaden skies, a loss to

the tourism board of Bromley, it

looks like that through my window

and I suspect 3 euros, that is going

away to the east, beginning today,

and as a consequence, after all it

is mid-February, the temperatures

will dip away and we will scrape the

car is first up but there will be

some sunshine away from the remnants

of the cloud in the east to start

the day.. Before that by that

because we are going to end up

losing the sunshine from the west by

the latter part of the morning and

in the early part of the afternoon

at some point I think we will see a

bit of rain. It will stay dry in the

east, temperatures five, six, seven,

8 degrees, something of that order,

I would have thought, and I leave

you with a look at the weekend,

which looks to be just a bit warmer,

double-figure