CONGDERMA! CONFON
:
British Citizenship by Birth
41. Under the present law people born in the United Kingdom become. Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies by birth; the only exceptions are in accordance with standard practice, that is, the children of accredited diplomats and children of citizens of an enemy country which had occupied part of the United Kingdom (or of the Islands, as was the case in the Channel Islands between 1940 and 1945). The Green Paper did not suggest any change in the acquisition of British Citizenship in this way. Most people who referred to this in their comments on the Green Paper supported this view,
although there were others who urged that a move should be made in the
direction of the ius sanguinis by stipulating that a child neither of whose
parents holds British Citizenship should not acquire it at birth.
42. The Government consider however that a move to the complete adoption of the ius sanguinis would have a serious effect on racial harmony. It would
deprive children born here to settled immigrants of our citizenship and could
hinder their integration into the community. But the Government are concerned
about the children born here to parents neither of whom is a British Citizen,
and neither of whom is free of conditions of stay. Births of this kind occur
in a wide range of circumstances: not only for example, to the couple who are
here in the country for a short stay, when the birth takes place unexpectedly
early; but to others who are here for long periods, but temporarily for
example as students; and also to people who have remained here in breach of conditions of entry, or who have entered illegally. In many such circumstances
there seems no real justification for continuing to allow the child to have our
citizenship unless one of the parents is subsequently accepted for settlement
here. It may indeed sometimes be the case that the acquisition of our
citizenship will be something of a handicap to a child later in life when he
has returned to his parents' country, if the law of that country requires him
to renounce other citizenships by a certain time and he forgets to do so.
43. But the Government's main uneasiness on this score is that allowing
birth to confer citizenship on such a child means also that after he returns
with his parents to their country, his own children, born years later, will
be British Citizens by descent. The additional British Citizens so created,
with the right of abode here, would form a pool of considerable size, and they
would have little or no real connection with the United Kingdom.
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