British Citizenship For Overseas Territories

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

30 October 2001

A bill to give the citizens of the UK's fourteen overseas territories full British citizenship is expected to clear the House of Lords today and to have its first reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday. But pressure on the legislative timetable means that the bill may or may not make it into law during this parliamentary session.

There are 200,000 citizens of the overseas territories, which include Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar. They have normally been able to live and work in the UK without problems, but often have had difficulties in other EU countries. As full British citizens they will of course have unlimited rights in the EU.

A Government spokesman was unable to say yesterday when the Overseas Territories Bill will finally be passed into law. Under the legislation, current British citizens will not be given any reciprocal rights to live and work in the overseas territories.

Speaking in the House of Lords in July, Baroness Amos, the under-secretary of state for overseas territories at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said: “There is no compulsion about acquiring British citizenship. We believe that most people will want it, but British Overseas Territories citizens, as the bill proposes they be known in the future, will have the option to renounce British citizenship, and retain their current status, should they so wish.”

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