65.
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. 66. 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 s0 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.
67.
Some concessions, however, might perhaps be made in connection with marriage, so that, for instance, those who