New Nationality Bill introduced to protect British citizenship of children of EU citizens

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The government have introduced a new bill confirming people’s British citizenship rights to confirm how British nationality law is applied to people born in the UK to parents who are EU citizens between 1 January 1983 and 1 October 2000.

The British Nationality (Regularisation of Past Practice) Bill follows the change in Home Office position which was first announced during a hearing in the High Court in October 2022. A short factsheet has also been published by the Home Office to explain what they are doing and why.

You can read more about background to this new legislation and the case of Roehrig here. The Home Office amended its guidance on 23 March 2023 to withdraw the policy that had previously been in place. But British citizenship is conferred by law, not the executive.

This was therefore a necessary step to legislate to protect people’s citizenship, including to continue to respect the right to a British passport of anyone affected by this change who had previously been issued a passport or other confirmation of citizenship, as well as finding ways that might enable people affected by the change who were not previously issued with a British passport some other confirmation of their citizenship.