In its New Plan for Immigration, the Government considers British nationality law to be outdated as it has not changed significantly since 1983.
The changes proposed to British Nationality Law include:
- Allowing children to acquire their biological father’s citizenship if the mother was married to someone else at the time of the child’s birth;
- Introducing new registration provisions for children of British Overseas Territories Citizens to acquire citizenship easily;
- Introducing a new discretionary adult registration route to grant citizenship in compelling and exceptional circumstances where there has been historical unfairness beyond a person’s control;
- Creating the flexibility to waive the residence requirement for naturalisation in exceptional cases.
Although the above proposals are positive, the New Plan for Immigration also proposes to limit the right of stateless children aged 5 or over to British nationality. This route has been considered to be abused and therefore a tightening of requirements and actions taken by parents is proposed before the statelessness provisions can be benefitted from.
Disclaimer:
The information in this blog is for general information purposes only and does not purport to be comprehensive or to provide legal advice. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the information and law is current as of the date of publication it should be stressed that, due to the passage of time, this does not necessarily reflect the present legal position. Connaught Law and authors accept no responsibility for loss that may arise from accessing or reliance on information contained in this blog. For formal advice on the current law please don’t hesitate to contact Connaught Law. Legal advice is only provided pursuant to a written agreement, identified as such, and signed by the client and by or on behalf of Connaught Law.
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