Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will ensure that official correspondence from her Department to people seeking to establish biological family relationships in immigration applications makes clear that providing DNA evidence is the best way of establishing parenthood.

The Home Office has no statutory power to require DNA evidence as part of an immigration application, but applicants are free to volunteer DNA evidence. Where applicants choose not to provide DNA evidence, no negative inference can be drawn from that and used in the decision-making process.

Where there is insufficient evidence of a biological relationship, applicants are given the opportunity to provide further supporting evidence. This can include DNA evidence, a declaration of parentage by the Family or High Court, or any other relevant evidence of the existence of the claimed biological relationship.

As the provision of DNA evidence is voluntary, officials must not send out letters only inviting applicants to offer DNA evidence and are unable to advise applicants on the relative merits of the evidence they may choose to provide.

The publicly available guidance is shown on gov.uk: DNA Policy Guidance.