§ Mr. Barry FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what provisions exist for British citizens employed on the CERN project and whose children were born in Switzerland between 1 January 1983 and 20 December 1994 to ensure that their grandchildren acquire British nationality if they too are born abroad; how many children were born with a reduced right of United Kingdom citizenship for their children; how many families have children with differing citizenship as a result of the exemption given to CERN under the 1984 designation order; what consideration was given to allowing all children born to British employees of CERN the opportunity of claiming full United Kingdom citizenship rights; and if he will make a statement. [30798]
§ Mr. Nicholas BakerNo special provision applies to employees of CERN unless they are on secondment from the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council—PPARC, formerly the Science and Engineering Research Council, SERC. Service under SERC was designated under section 2(3) of the British Nationality Act 1981 on 21 December 1984. The effect of this designation is that any children born abroad after that date to British employees of SERC or PPARC become British citizens "otherwise than by descent" and may transmit their British citizenship to a second generation born abroad. The Home Office does not keep records of the numbers of children born in Switzerland who are affected by this designation since the transmission of citizenship to and from them is a matter of law requiring no official intervention. There is no provision in the 1981 Act for designations to have retrospective effect, nor is there any 767W discretionary power in the Act to vary a person's status from "by descent" to "otherwise than by descent".