CONFIDENTIAL
with a United Kingdom-based organisation.
The Government realise that
there are some individual cases in which a good argument could be made
for taking this view but on the other hand they have to bear in mind that
any arrangement based on a defined connection may in time be misused by
unscrupulous people to secure the right of entry for people living abroad
who have little or no claim on this country. While the Government propose to make generous arrangements for people working abroad, they cannot do
this in such a way that vital United Kingdom interests on the immigration front will be in time prejudiced.
58. A separate provision will be included for the children of Crown
Servants. The people who will principally benefit from this will be the
children of members of the diplomatic service whose parents have diplomatic immunity and who as a rule do not acquire the citizenship of the country
to which their parent is accredited. Such parents are based in the
United Kingdom but spend a high proportion of their lives abroad and it
will be proposed that their children born overseas shall become citizens by birth.
Acquisition of Citizenship by Naturalisation General
59.
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We come now to the acquisition of citizenship by a voluntary act on
the part of an adult person. The word 'naturalisation' has traditionally been reserved for the granting of nationality and citizenship to foreigners
and British Frotected Persons. But the distinction between naturalisation
and registration is blurred, for example because foreign wives and children
acquire citizenship by registration, while in recent years following the Immigration Act of 1971, the registration of a Commonwealth citizen has been
by a process very similar to that of the naturalisation of a foreigner.
Other countries, eg Australia, use the same term in relation to
both classes, and to continue the use of the word 'registration' would do
nothing to reduce the confusion in the use of that word. The Government
think it would now be better to use the term 'naturalisation' to denote the
grant of citizenship to an adult following a period of residence in the United Kingdom, or of Crown Service, and that other types of acquisition
should be known as 'registration'. It will be convenient to refer to
citizenship acquired by either naturalisation or registration as 'citizenship
by grant'.
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