Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

The purpose of the amendment is to allow those born to fathers not married to their mothers to register as British citizens. In the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, the law was changed so that children born to British fathers who were not married to their non-British and not-settled mothers were born British if their fathers could prove paternity. This only assisted those born after 1 July 2006, when the provisions were finally given full effect, under Section 162(5) of the 2002 Act. The person can be registered by discretion, while still a child, under Section 3(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981, but the Home Office does not always agree to register these children, and not everyone who was born out of wedlock to a British father is capable of being registered. The fourth condition is designed to cover two situations; first, that of children born in the UK or a qualifying territory after 1 January 1983. If they had been born prior to that date in the UK, that would have sufficed to make them British. It will also cover children born to a British father otherwise than by descent; in other words, someone who can pass on his nationality to his children born overseas, outside the UK or in a qualifying territory. It really fills an anomaly in a period of time for which these children do not have rights because their mothers were not registered. We hope that the Minister will cover it as he has covered other amendments to this Clause. I beg to move.