§ Sir R. Glynasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will look into the present methods of the Passport Office and. in consultation with the Secretary of State for Commonwealth 227W Relations and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, endeavour to work out a system that, whilst preserving an adequate measure of control over persons holding British passports residing in foreign countries, does not necessitate a similar procedure when the individual has been resident in a British Dominion or Colony for over 25 years nor requires such detail as the name of the village or town where each parent was born over 50 years ago.
§ Mr. NuttingUnited Kingdom passports can only as a general rule be granted to persons who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and the sole object of the inquiries to which my hon. Friend refers is to ascertain that the applicant does in fact possess that citizenship. Residence outside the United Kingdom and Colonies for however long a period does not entail the loss of United Kingdom citizenship or affect in228W any way the applicant's claim to that citizenship, but if the applicant or his father was born in another Commonwealth country he may, according to the law of that country, be a citizen of that country.
A citizen of any Commonwealth country is according to United Kingdom law, a British subject, but unless he can establish that he is also a United Kingdom citizen, the proper travel document for him is a passport of the Commonwealth country whose citizenship he possesses, and he is referred to the authorities of that country.
Where a person possesses both United Kingdom citizenship and the citizenship of another Commonwealth country, there is no objection so far as this country is concerned to his holding a United Kingdom passport in addition to a passport of the other Commonwealth country.