شروع سطحی
difficulties of effectively administering the clause. A completely new scheme seems to be called for, with the following main features.
Where a parent is a citizen otherwise than by descent (i.e. has been born, naturalised or, in general, registered, in this country) any children born overseas will be citizens by descent at birth. This is provided for by clause 2 now, but that clause also provides for the children born overseas of Crown servants to be citizens otherwise than by descent and I would like to extend this to cover the children of persons employed by an EC institution. The concession to the EC seems absolutely necessary if the Lords are to pass the Bill.
Instead of the employment criteria in clause 3, I propose to substitute an entitlement to be registered as a British citizen for anyone born to a parent who is a citizen by descent provided that that parent
(a)
(b)
was himself or herself born to a citizen otherwise than descent and
had resided in the United Kingdom at any time for a period of three years subject to absences from the United Kingdom not to exceed 270 days.
The child would have to be registered within 12 months, although there would be discretion to accept later applications.
There will of course be objections from those who feel that they are not covered by a provision of this kind but the unremitting criticism of the employment criteria demonstrates that it is simply not possible to define connecting links with the United Kingdom which go beyond citizen- ship and residence. The Bill contains a discretionary power to register any minor child and it would be further amended to provide that certain registrations (that is to say, registrations of children born to British citizens by descent) would confer citizenship by descent. This makes it possible for the Government to indicate a willingness to exercise this discretionary power for children in the second and subsequent generations who, although their parents cannot meet the criteria which would enable them to have an entitlement, nevertheless might seem to have connections with this country which should be recognised by the grant of citizenship. I believe, however, that it is essential to provide separately for statelessness for the second generation born overseas and accordingly I intend to provide that there shall be an entitlement to registration for any child whose parents do not meet the criteria I have specified, provided that the child would otherwise be stateless.
I should perhaps say that we did consider whether citizenship should not pass automatically to everyone in the second generation, born overseas
/but
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