New Plan for Immigration Ending Anomalies in British Nationality Law
This Act will introduce new registration provisions for children of British Overseas Territories citizens, who were unable to acquire that status under earlier legislation, either because women could not pass on citizenship at the time of their birth, or because their parents were not married. The Act will also introduce a provision for children to acquire their father’s citizenship where they were unable to do so because their mother was married to someone else. The Act will also create a new time-limited route for the descendants of those born on the Chagos Islands, now known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, to apply to register as both British Overseas Territories citizens and British citizens.
	A new adult registration route will allow the Secretary of State to grant citizenship where, in the Secretary of State’s opinion, a person failed to become a British citizen and/or British Overseas Territories citizen because of historical legislative unfairness, an act or omission by a public authority; or other exceptional circumstances relating to the person’s case.
	This Act also removes the requirement to have been in the United Kingdom at the start of the five (or three) year residential qualifying period for naturalisation in exceptional cases. This will mean that people will not be prevented from qualifying if there are good reasons why they could not have been in the United Kingdom at that time.
	The Act will allow the Secretary of State to disapply the requirement to give notice of a decision to deprive a person of their nationality where notice of the decision would be impractical or a threat to national security.
	The Act will amend the existing provisions for the registration of a stateless child as a citizen, adding a requirement that a child aged 5-17 will not qualify if they could reasonably acquire another nationality. This means that a child cannot benefit if their parents could, but choose not to, acquire their own nationality for their child.