Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy that foreign citizens married to a member of the armed forces can include within their qualifying period for British citizenship the time they were living overseas while accompanying their spouse on his or her deployment.

For spouses and civil partners of British citizens there is discretion in the law to overlook time spent outside the United Kingdom accompanying a spouse or civil partner in Crown or specially "designated" service, which includes
service in HM Forces. In these circumstances, time spent overseas is counted as though it were time spent in the UK for the purpose of satisfying the nationality residence requirements.

For Foreign or Commonwealth members of HM Forces, where discretion would normally be exercised over excess absences occasioned by the service person’s armed forces service, the spouse’s or civil partner’s absences are normally
disregarded in line.