British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Bill

[secret.simon]

I must confess that this Private Members Bill was not something I was aware of till today.

It is a Private Members Bill (so introduced by individual Members of the Commons or or the House of Lords, not by the government), but which has government backing. Indeed it was prepared by the Home Office, "with the consent of Lord Hay of Ballyore, the Member in Charge of the Bill", which is very unusual for a Private Members Bill. Normally a PMB needs to be written by the Member themselves, with the help of their own lawyers.

It has already passed all stages in the Commons and had its Second Reading in the Lords today.

It is a very simple Bill and adds a special route for Irish citizens residing in the UK to register as British citizens.

Currently Irish citizens need to naturalise as British citizens, which means having to do an LITUK test and English language test and meet the usual absence and physical presence requirements.

The Bill preserves the five year absence and good character requirements, but dispenses with LITUK and English language tests and a physical presence requirement.

So Irish citizens will have a simpler and slightly cheaper pathway to British citizenship than the current naturalisation process.

[contorted_svy]

Perhaps a silly question, but if one is an Irish citizen, isn't the English language requirement automatically satisfied by producing an Irish passport? Nice to waive the requirement, but it was automatically satisfied to my eyes already.

[CR001]

Perhaps a silly question, but if one is an Irish citizen, isn't the English language requirement automatically satisfied by producing an Irish passport? Nice to waive the requirement, but it was automatically satisfied to my eyes already.

Not all Irish citizens are Irish born. There are 1000's from the many non English speaking countries who have naturalised.

[contorted_svy]

Perhaps a silly question, but if one is an Irish citizen, isn't the English language requirement automatically satisfied by producing an Irish passport? Nice to waive the requirement, but it was automatically satisfied to my eyes already.

Not all Irish citizens are Irish born. There are 1000's from the many non English speaking countries who have naturalised.

Agreed, but I thought the requirement was satisfied by showing a passport of a majority English speaking country, regardless of where one is born or their path to citizenship.

[Ticktack]

Perhaps a silly question, but if one is an Irish citizen, isn't the English language requirement automatically satisfied by producing an Irish passport? Nice to waive the requirement, but it was automatically satisfied to my eyes already.

Not all Irish citizens are Irish born. There are 1000's from the many non English speaking countries who have naturalised.

Agreed, but I thought the requirement was satisfied by showing a passport of a majority English speaking country, regardless of where one is born or their path to citizenship.

I agree with this. Many Americans, Canadians are immigrants. The passport suffices regardless of origin history.

I believe it's just one of those things they add to beef up the bill. Like residency even though if they were in their home country, they'd still be in the CTA. But yeah I know they could also easily be anywhere in the world.

Let me digress, if a Brit needs to school in the US, he/she might need to do Test Of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), even though it's not foreign to an "English" person!

Life and policies could be weird like that.

[geminiblue]

Perhaps a silly question, but if one is an Irish citizen, isn't the English language requirement automatically satisfied by producing an Irish passport? Nice to waive the requirement, but it was automatically satisfied to my eyes already.

Irish citizens are exempt from the English language requirement, as are citizens of a list of qualifying English-speaking countries. I'm an Irish citizen, and only had to do the Life in the UK test when I naturalised a few years ago. No distinction was made between natural-born and naturalised Irish citizens.

I've seen the language requirement for Irish citizens mentioned - incorrectly - in almost all press reporting of the British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Act.