Richard W

True; a person who is British by descent cannot pass their British nationality onto their children unless those children are born in the UK or a qualifying territory.

However, their children may be eligible to apply for registration as British and if granted that would make those children British otherwise than by descent and their children would therefore automatically be British wherever they were born.

If the said children were to live with their parents in the UK for 3 years without being registered first, they could be registered as British other than by descent. However, if they were registered as British at birth, on the basis of their parent's prior residence in the UK, they would be British by descent.

As another complication, fathers can transmit Britishness to their children born of unmarried mothers. On the other hand, the children of married mothers cannot derive Britishness from their fathers as such; they instead derive Britishness from their mother's husband.

Complicated, aint it!?

Verily.

Richard, entitled may not, strictly speaking, be the correct word; but I'm sure most know what I mean.

Unfortunately, there are issues such as whether one will receive treatment that one should but can't pay for. As to 'free', well some people are entitled to free prescriptions.

Being in the UK for a settled purpose has a lot to do with it.

From the guidance on ordinary residence

1. General guidance

1.1 ‘Ordinary residence’ has not been defined in any Act of Parliament. The leading case in this area is R -v- Barnet LBC ex parte Shah [1983] 1 All ER 226. The concept was held by the House of Lords to imply the following:

a. Ordinary residence is established if there is a regular habitual mode of life in a particular place "for the time being", "whether of short of short or long duration", the continuity of which has persisted apart from temporary or occasional absences. The only provisos are that the residence must be voluntary and adopted for "a settled purpose".

1.2 Although Shah was concerned with the meaning of ‘ordinary residence’ as used in the Education Acts, the decision is generally recognised as having wider application and should normally be followed when determining status or other matters under the immigration and nationality legislation.

5. When does a person become ordinarily resident?

5.1 A person may become ordinarily resident immediately on arrival, and probably will if entering the territory for settlement or one of the purposes leading to settlement.

Obvioulsy, a fiance visa is a purpose leading to settlement!

Therefore, based upon the above, a person in the UK with a fiance visa is classed as ordinarily resident and so entitled, or whatever word you prefer, to full use of the NHS.

Even though they wont pay the IHS surcharge until they apply for FLR after the marriage.

But if you can find anything from UKVI, the Dept. of Health or any other government source which says differently, then obviously I will be pleased to see it.

I linked you to the law of the land. Which bit of Section 39 of the Immigration Act 2014 did you not understand? It came into force on 6 April 2015 by the Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 5) Order 2015. The meaning of 'ordinarily resident' was adjusted for use in connection with paying for the NHS.

However, if you prefer unreliable sources, I offer you the UKVI page Pay for UK healthcare as part of your immigration application:

You’ll be able to use the National Health Service (NHS) if you’re exempt from paying - except if you’re on a visitor visa or any visa that will only last for 6 months or less (that you applied for from outside the UK). You’ll have to pay for care you get through the NHS at the point you use it.

A fiancé(e) visa only lasts for 6 months.

(Duplicate post)

Dual British/Thai nationals should avoid entering Thailand on a passport that will expire there. The risks of not being able to renew the passport are too great.

Why would they not be able to renew an expired Thai passport in Thailand?

Problems that immediately occur to me are:

• For children, a parent or substitute may be missing
• Birth certificate may not be in Thailand
• No Thai ID card

The reason is, dual nationality is not the same anymore, if a child is born outside the kingdom, the child is alien.

Do you have a link for this change in Thai nationality law?

I stand corrected; thank you.

It does seem that as a fiance visa is valid for 6 months that the surcharge is not payable until the FLR application after the marriage.

But I'm still not sure if this means the person is not entitled to NHS treatment until then; after all, they are in the UK for a settled purpose.

I'm not sure that anyone is entitled to NHS treatment; the best one can do in the way of enforcing rights is to get the treatment elsewhere and bill the NHS.

What does 'settled purpose' have to do with it? The test for treatment being as free as for most people is 'ordinary residence' with the statutory exclusions for 'NHS charging purposes', and on the usual route of fiancée to settled wife, one only gets officially 'free' treatment once one gets ILR. However, paying the IHS effectively makes treatment 'free'. I'm not sure how any of the rare EEA nationals on this route qualify for 'free' treatment; it seems that they do, and they are excluded from the IHS.

Lest anyone be panicking, note that long-term visas obtained and being obtained before IHS came in effectively come with free IHS.

But a fiance visa, although only valid for 6 months, is a type of settlement visa. It allows the holder to travel to the UK, marry their fiance and then apply for further leave to remain after the marriage.

As it's a form of settlement visa she would be classed as being in the UK for a 'settled purpose' and so considered as 'ordinarily resident' and so entitled to NHS treatment. See chapter 3 of Guidance on implementing the overseas visitor hospital charging regulations 2015

Not any more. See Section 3.10 of the said guidance. People with limited leave to remain are not ordinarily resident for NHS charging purposes (Immigration Act 2014 Section 39(1)( . As the IHS is not payable for visas of six months or less, she'd be in the same position as a visitor. I don't know when IHS cover starts on the settlement route. I suspect not until the further leave for the start of the five year probationary period starts.

Dual British/Thai nationals should avoid entering Thailand on a passport that will expire there. The risks of not being able to renew the passport are too great.

Using the link above and having a good read am I right in understanding that having a Biometric Residence Permit should avoid this potential hassle? If so has anyone gone through the procedure of applying for one and what does it involve? Must admit never heard of one of these myself.

It costs a few hundred quid by post. Maintenance seems to be a lot of hassle. One can't renew it from outside the UK and one can only renew it once it has expired. Renewal on expiry is mandatory, but one should get a reminder before fines are levied. It expires every 10 years, except that all current cards for ILR/NTL will expire by the end of 2024. The extension to the end of the current 10-year period will be 'free'. There is a special visa for when one finds oneself outside the UK without a valid BRP because of expiry, theft, loss or damage. On renewal, one is requested to provide evidence of continual residence since ILR was granted.

BRP holders are required to report changes of address and nationality to the Home Office. As a possible exception to the renewal cycle, one has to get a new card on changes of name. I have a feeling the 'single identity' rule may bite at this point.

There is no appeal against refusal to issue a new BRP card.

Once someone has any form of settlement visa, they are entitled to work unless it specifically states otherwise on the visa.

Yeah, but is an employer required to consider them for employment?

I think it highly likely that the ladies have ILR stamps in expired passports. While Bob Russell gave the unclear impression that he would consider employing someone who has proof of holding ILR, such as ILR stamps clearly accepted by Immigration, most employers will not accept such stamps for new employees. The reason is that such evidence of the right to work does not protect an employer if the passport holder is an imposter, or, more significantly, especially for the ink stamps rather than the stickers, the stamp turns out to be fake.

Instead, ILR holders have to show an ILR stamp in a current passport, or a current BRP. These protect the employer if the stamps are not obvious fakes or the worker is a non-obvious imposter. This topic came up a year or two ago, when stamps and stickers in expired passports stopped being accepted.

I'm glad that you (or, based on your previous topic; your wife) didn't have any problems.

However, I wouldn't recommend it as technically she should have handed in her BRP after naturalisation and so entered the UK on a British passport or a right of abode sticker in her Thai one.

That would have added at least 6 weeks to the journey time unless the combined naturalisation and passport scheme was used.

British passport renewal is extremely difficult if one's name is different in different country's passports.

Normally, for dual citizens, it's required that you enter and depart you country of citizenship on that passport.

Not in the civilised world.

Travels between the UK and Thailand can be done using a current Thai passport with an expired British passport as a sort of visa for entering the UK. The converse seems not to work - if one enters Thailand on an expired Thai passport, one has to exit on a current Thai passport.

7by7, I wasn't complaining as such, I was just pointing out that the rules appear to be discriminatory. If you are from the EU you don't need to sit English tests and you don't have to pay thousands of pounds to apply for FLR and ILR.

,

How do you feel about the Welsh not being formally tested in English? (OK, I know it's extremely hard to find a Welshman who would fail.)

The ideal behind the EU system, of course, is that the EU is one big state just like Canada.

Child has father's English surname! The Thai passport just avoids another set of visa issues! Been suggested that child goes to Laos on ID card..no passport required, "loses" ID card and permit and re-enters Thailand on UK passport. Bet that is illegal!! What would the Laos do with an illegal 16 year old farang immigrant?

Deport her to the UK, with any luck!

If you're referring to the issue of changing surnames, it's the problem that the British Passport Office insists that people have the same name on all their passports. If she has her maiden name on her latest Thai passport, she won't be allowed to have her married name on a new British passport. Suppose Thailand adopted such a policy!

This pickle sounds like another good reason for not getting an Anglo-Thai child resident in the UK a Thai passport! The hassle of changing the surname on marriage is yet another.

Your effective nationality in Thailand is the nationality given by the passport on which you entered the country, at least as far as the Immigration Division is concerned. There is an exception for those naturalising as Thai - they become Thai on naturalising as Thai. One must exit Thailand using a current passport of one's effective nationality.

It seems that the only solution is to correct the entry records so that she will have entered on a British passport. It has been done in the recent past, though in that case the Thai passport expired before entry.

Aren't foreign children born in any country legally entitled to having that countries nationality by being born? Jus Soli or something.

No. Not all countries have jus soli (right by place of birth); many have jus sanguinis (right by blood) or a mixed system. There has been a general move away from jus soli to jus sanguinis, but with small elements of jus soli. For example, children born to permanent residents of a country often automatically acquire citizenship, as in Thailand.

The bigger concern is whether the visa stamp is expired, as (I don't think) you can get stamped in if your passport will expire before the stamp.

Unless the passport holder was in the UK with an ILR stamp - Indefinite Leave To Remain. There's no expiry date on that stamp itself.

More precisely, they don't expire. Some of them (or is it ILEs) have a meaningless expiry date that can cause confusion.

I believe the British 'visas' that we had been taught to call extensions of stay also run independently of passport expiry. This is especially true of the biometric residence permits (BRPs). They do have an expiry date, and it may get nasty when the ILR BRPs start expiring in 2022.

Yes, at least to fly and enter.

another potential issue is if she had to change terminals after arriving, not sure if there are airside transfers or she would need to to go through immigration to make her way to her departure terminal. This is a scenario I haven't thought about before. For those who know Heathrow, the distances between terminals in some cases is quite a lot

There are airside transfers by free bus - allegedly very frequent throughout the day, but I have my doubts about them being such high frequency at night.

I had a look at the inter-terminal itinerary for transferring between PR720 from Manila due at T4 at 21:00 on 9 June and SK820 to Oslo due to leave T2 at 7.05 the following morning. It mentioned clearing security in T2, but nothing at all about clearing immigration.

I have seen a report of people staying overnight being herded from the lounge area to a gate, and passports and flights being recorded. That might be when transit visas are checked. The report is a few years old, so things may have changed.

Apparently, it is an administrative concession that airside transit passengers who are visa nationals don't normally need a visa to enter the UK, though there is a statutory instrument for Direct Air Transit visas (DATv). It therefore seems that the Home Office can impose whatever rules it likes, without giving Parliament any opportunity to object. It looks as though DATv enforcement is primarily done by airlines - rather like the onward ticket for tourists' visa-exempt entry to Thailand.

The above list (which is indeed what Spain asks) is slighltly too strict and thus not a 100% proper applicatiom of the EU rules on freedom of movement.

<snip>

You could ofcourse argue if the (Thai based) Spanish embassy is really incapable of reading Thai docements and if they really can not be sure about the authenticity of the docents but it's best to simply cooperate. If this is a huge and unreasonable cost or burden to you, contact the EU ombudsman Solvit.

-making plaussible that the Thai will go to Spain (Tenerife) with the EU national should be enough, such as a written and signed letter or a transport reservation (not a paid ticket!). Accomodation cannot be asked about, but you may include an (unpaid) booking if you like (again Spain would be asking too much based on what the EU dictates!).

The above list was for the London embassy.

You don't need to pass (or even take) Life in the UK by the half-way stage. However, in October (I think) the English requirement for the second half goes up to A2.

The only visa I can think of is settlement (FLR(M)), for which he will now have to pass the NHS surcharge £500. I haven't heard that one can get refunds if one abandons the UK. However, I can't advise you to go for the second half of the five years, for he would only be eligible if the two of you intended to permanently live together in the UK, and clearly you don't.

In the Statement of changes published when these rules were introduced it states that the onward flight must be no later the 23.59 the day after arrival in the UK, though I'm not convinced that travellers to Norway are part of that scheme, but as they intend to stay landside as I read it they are not seeking leave to enter.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-transit-visas-immigration-act-2014/changes-to-transit-visas

I certainly wouldn't relish the prospect of spending 20 hours at Heathrow.

I read that change as being for landside transit.

As I understand it, the intention is to stay airside. (This may be inhumane - apparently, Terminal 1 gets very cold at night, and the others are closed.) The problem is that I would expect the 20 hours to encompass midnight - e.g. arrive at 13:00 and leave at 09:00. It is only because the stay encompasses midnight that I think a (landside) transit visa is required. A Direct Air Transit Visa would not suffice - it does not cover midnight! (Well, it could if a plane were sufficiently delayed in departing.)

I think 'same day' in the rules for transiting airside mean 'with no intervening midnight'. Unfortunately, I can't even find the rule (apart from the fining of airlines) that stops someone taking a week to transit airside, though I strongly suspect such a rule exists.