Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to implement an exemption to the residency requirement for UK citizenship in regards to EU nationals who have been in the UK since infancy and have had a period overseas for study or work in the five years proceeding their application.

There are no plans to exempt EU nationals from the statutory residence requirements for British citizenship, which apply to all applicants regardless of nationality. It is fair all applicants, irrespective of nationality, meet these same requirements to ensure citizenship is granted on a consistent basis.

A person should not normally be absent from the UK for more than 450 days during a 5 year residential period, and no more than 90 days in the final year. There is some discretion available to caseworkers over excess absences and this is normally exercised where the applicant has established their home, employment, family and finances in the UK, and the absence is as a result of compelling or compassionate reasons beyond the applicant’s control. Details of how discretion may be exercised is published in nationality guidance.

There are no figures available through our normal reporting mechanisms for the specific scenario requested. Transparency data on overall approval/refusal numbers for citizenship applications can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/visas-and-citizenship-data-q3-2021