British Citizenship Fees: Children

Debate between Tim Loughton and Stuart C McDonald

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention—I shall be very happy to champion the cause of British citizenship for the next few years at least. He makes the absolutely valid point that, on the basis of international comparisons, the amount that we charge children is exorbitant. It does not compare well at all.

The Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens has done fantastic work in challenging the Home Office fees on behalf of kids and even in helping to secure financial support from generous donors willing to help kids to achieve citizenship through donations, although it is outrageous that kids should have to look to charity to secure their citizenship. That organisation is fantastically well placed to speak about the impact on British kids of being denied formal British citizenship. The kids grow up blissfully unaware that they are not, unlike their peers, British citizens. They do not realise that until they cannot join their peers on a school trip abroad or they apply for university and suddenly are faced with paying overseas fees. Without British citizenship—they are just like the Windrush generation in a sense—these children are made subject to immigration control and potentially the hostile or compliant environment, which means that they run the risk of being refused access to healthcare, employment, education, social assistance and housing. There is even the possibility of being detained, removed from and excluded from their own country altogether. In fact, that was mentioned in the most recent report by Stephen Shaw.

The PRCBC has provided a number of case studies—I suspect that hon. Members have access to them—highlighting individual stories. I will mention just one. May was brought to the UK when she was two months old and she has never left the country. She was first taken into care when aged five. A full care order was made later. She should have been registered as a British citizen under section 3 of the British Nationality Act while she was in care, but she was not, and she lost the opportunity when she turned 18. May gave birth to Heather and was later granted indefinite leave to remain, but Heather was not born British, because at the time of her birth her mother was neither British nor settled. Heather now has an entitlement to register as British under section 1 of the 1981 Act because of the settled status that her mother subsequently acquired, but her mother simply cannot afford the £1,012 fee to register her daughter as British. Heather was born and brought up in Britain. She knows no other country. She is to all intents and purposes British. She is entitled to British citizenship—she should not be required to pay more than £1,000 to access that entitlement—and cannot access it.

Tens of thousands of British-born children face similar issues. Surely that is contrary to the Government’s duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and to the requirement that children’s best interests be a primary consideration in all actions concerning them.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I congratulate my fellow member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on bringing up this very important issue. Is he aware of two things? First, the very expensive fees for all sorts of visa and citizenship arrangements in this country are having repercussions. For example, I have just had to pay out £465 for my daughter to study for a few months in Brazil—that form of visa is most expensive for UK citizens. Secondly, does he agree that, far from the Home Office making a substantial profit out of vulnerable children, there should be no fee at all in the case of children in the care system?