§ 3. Mr. MacShaneTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to amend nationality legislation to allow the transmission of citizenship to the grandchildren of British citizens; and if he will make a statement. [18984]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Timothy Kirkhope)None. We remain of the view that, as a general rule, British citizenship should not be transmitted beyond the first generation born abroad.
§ Mr. MacShaneI am disappointed by that response. I am raising this issue on behalf of the many hundreds of thousands, if not now millions, of British citizens who work and live overseas. If they have children, those children are British, but if they, in turn, live abroad and have children, nationality will not be transmitted to the grandchildren of the first generation, save by grace and favour on the part of the Home Secretary. That situation is causing real concern. We have asylum problems, and there does have to be a cut-off, but the grandchildren of British citizens should be allowed to remain British.
§ Mr. KirkhopeThe position—as it was deemed right by the House in the 1970s, and supported by the Labour party in its Green Paper—is that citizenship should be a mixture of rights and duties, that there should be some commitment on the part of those who seek to acquire it and that there must be some concern and interest with the country of their choice. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. I am not able to give him the assurances that he is seeking, but, as he knows, there are certain exceptions to the rule. If he has an individual case that he would like me to consider, I should be pleased to do so.
§ Sir Donald ThompsonNone the less, will my hon. Friend ensure that people who work abroad are made aware of the position? My first grandson was born this week. His mother went to considerable trouble to come home from Spain to ensure that he was born here so that a problem would not arise when his—Edward Thompson's—children come to be born, perhaps somewhere else in the world. It is incumbent on us to ensure that British people working abroad should go to as much trouble as necessary to come here to have their children.
§ Mr. KirkhopeI fully accept what my hon. Friend says. Certainly in his own family's case, the necessary actions were taken to ensure that citizenship would pass to the children. We look sympathetically at cases involving people who work—particularly in the interests of this country—abroad.