{"id":447382,"date":"2026-02-26T21:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/447382\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T21:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:59:08","slug":"british-danish-couple-say-new-uk-passport-rules-may-separate-them-from-children-home-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/447382\/","title":{"rendered":"British-Danish couple say new UK passport rules may separate them from children | Home Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British man and a Danish woman fear they will be separated from their young children in Copenhagen airport because of new border control rules on British dual nationals.<\/p>\n

James Scrivens and his wife, Sara, who live in Wales, were visiting relatives in Norway and Denmark during the school holidays, and learned about the new Home Office rules<\/a> only while they were abroad.<\/p>\n

Under the rules, dual nationals risk being denied boarding if they do not present a British passport, current or expired, or a \u201ccertificate of entitlement\u201d, costing \u00a3589, attached to the passport of their second nationality, to prove their right to enter the UK.<\/p>\n

On Thursday the migration minister Mike Tapp dismissed as \u201cabsurd\u201d<\/a> claims that the government had failed to properly communicate the new rules.<\/p>\n

Scrivens is hoping the airline will show clemency when they turn up in Copenhagen on Friday, but says if they don\u2019t, their children may have to stay with their grandparents while at least one parent returns home to apply for their first British passports.<\/p>\n

His case highlights the human cost of a new rule that the Home Office<\/a> introduced without effective communication to dual citizens around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo weeks ago we travelled to Norway and Denmark<\/a> to visit family. My children were both born in the United Kingdom \u2013 my youngest, Ianto (8), was born in Carmarthen. They are British citizens by birth. I am British; their mother is Danish and holds settled status. The children, ages eight and 12, however, currently hold only Danish passports.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt no stage were we directly informed that this change would have such immediate consequences for British-born children travelling on a non-UK passport. There has been no targeted communication to families in our position. I only learned about it by chance through social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now face a deeply troubling prospect: Sara and I must return to Wales for work, but our children may not be permitted to board. We are therefore potentially facing separation from our own British children because of an administrative change that was never clearly communicated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Scrivens has written to his MP, Plaid Cymru\u2019s Ann Davies, to ask that she \u201craise this matter urgently with the Home Office and the relevant minister, as the lack of communication and transitional provision has placed our family in an untenable position\u201d.<\/p>\n

Davies said she was \u201cdeeply distressed\u201d to learn of the situation facing Scrivens and his family, adding: \u201cMy office has been in contact with Mr Scrivens to assure him that we are doing everything possible to support him and will be urgently raising his case with the minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that it was clear that the government\u2019s decisions were \u201chaving real and deeply distressing consequences\u201d for her constituents, describing communications on the change as \u201cdisastrous\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge the government to act swiftly to prevent other families from experiencing the same hardship faced by Mr Scrivens and his family,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Davis takes ‘unusual step’ of thanking Guardian for coverage of dual nationals \u2013\u00a0video<\/p>\n

During an urgent question in which the Guardian was praised for bringing the plight of some dual nationals to light, Tapp said: \u201cI am clear that there has been no mishandling from the Home Office on this important issue. As I said in my speech, this has been on the government website since 2024. We have also spent significant sums of money on getting the message out there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The measures, he said, \u201care making our border more secure and they are very much in line with what other nations are doing\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the Liberal Democrat MP Manuela Perteghella, a British Italian, sharply criticised the migration minister. \u201cCommunication has been wholly inadequate. Putting guidance on a website is not a communications strategy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When Canada introduced a similar scheme the government delayed its enforcement and created a low-cost temporary authorisation for dual nationals who were unaware of the change in border rules, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt worked. Why has the government refused to adopt the same commonsense approach?\u201d she asked during an urgent question in the House of Commons on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Conservative MP and former cabinet minister David Davis also called on the government to introduce a grace period to allow those affected to get passports.<\/p>\n

Davis raised concerns over a 91-year-old constituent<\/a> whose dual-national daughter can no longer visit her mother from the Netherlands because her passport expired on 13 February and the replacement is still being processed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British man and a Danish woman fear they will be separated from their young children in Copenhagen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-447382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}