British Citizenship for children of EEA nationals (1983 - 2000)

British Citizenship for children of EEA nationals

The courts held that the Home Office's interpretation of the law between 1983 and 2000 on when EEA Nationals were treated as settled in the UK, was incorrect. In practice, this meant that the children of such EEA settled nationals born in the UK during this time were wrongly treated as British.

However, the Secretary of State has tabled a bill, “the British Nationality (Regularisation of Past Practice) Bill” which will correct the law, retrospectively as to avoid such children no longer being treated as British. The bill is being expedited and should be law by the end of July 2023.

See - https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3465

The Bill went through all its stages in the Commons in about half an hour, as it is not controversial and merely puts existing interpretation into law.

One of the speeches mentioned in passing that only 95 people are affected by this bill. So it is unlikely to have a wide impact.

It is now waiting to go through the House of Lords, which is focussing on the Illegal Migration Bill at the moment.