63.
(ii)
(iii)
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a ban on dual nationality where it arises voluntarily - our citizens who voluntarily took another citizenship would thereby lose our citizenship, and applicants for our citizenship would have to renounce any other citizenship as a condition of becoming citizens;
a ban on dual nationality only where our citizens voluntarily acquired another nationality (as was the practice in United Kingdom law from 1870-1948).
To ban dual nationality completely would be complicated and expensive. A record would have to be kept of all children born both in the United Kingdom and abroad who had another nationality in addition to ours. When such children came of age they would have to be advised of the need to choose, and the time limit for doing so. In view of the large numbers of people from this country living abroad, and of people from other countries living in the United Kingdom, this would be an immense task, and it is very doubtful whether everyone affected could be covered. The alternative would be to rely on the individual remembering to make a choice, but this could lead to hardship, where the individual inadvertently lost his citizenship by failing to do so; there would probably have to be elaborate machinery to exempt such persons, and this could also be expensive. Admittedly, there are bound to be more dual nationals if women are able to transmit their citizenship to their children born abroad on the same terms as men, but it is doubtful whether this increase would justify a complete ban on dual nationality, with all its attendant problems. After all, most of the children born abroad to British women would probably decide for themselves which nationality they wanted to use.
64. A ban on dual nationality where it arises as a matter of voluntary act would not present so many problems. It could indeed be part of the clearer and better defined British Citizenship for which we are aiming. Some foreign and Commonwealth citizens might be reluctant to give up their citizenship on acquiring ours, though at present many do so automatically under their own country's laws, but it is difficult to justify setting a more severe standard for our own citizens who want to acquire a foreign or Commonwealth citizenship than for foreign and Commonwealth nationals who want to acquire our citizenship. We should require the same degree of commitment from both groups.
65.
Some concessions, however, might perhaps be made in connection with marriage, so that, for instance, those who apply for British Citizenship, or acquire another by virtue of marriage, might be allowed to keep both their citizenships (provided the laws of the other country concerned permit this). Such persons would then still have the right of entry to their own country of origin if the marriage failed.
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