Electronic Travel Authorisation: Dual Nationals

Commons Urgent Question

The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House of Commons on Wednesday 25 February.

“The introduction of electronic travel authorisations—ETAs, as they are known—is part of plans to modernise and digitise the UK’s border and immigration system by providing a much clearer picture of who intends to travel to the UK for short periods. ETAs will enable a more targeted approach to border control, strengthening security and ensuring a smoother travel experience.

From today, carriers will check that eligible passengers hold an ETA before travelling to the UK and will deny boarding to those who do not hold the correct permissions. British citizens, including those who hold dual nationality, do not need and are not eligible for an ETA. They must travel with a valid British passport or another passport endorsed with a certificate of entitlement to the right of abode, known as a CoE.

Since the outset of the scheme, the Home Office has embedded clear messaging for dual nationals across the ETA communications campaign and published comprehensive guidance on GOV.UK setting out clearly what dual citizens need to do. Since 2024, we have provided explicit written and spoken guidance to people who naturalise or register as British citizens, including through their application and at citizenship ceremonies. Since the start of the year, we have also emailed people who have registered or naturalised in the last 10 years where we hold usable contact details.

In order to support British nationals overseas—particularly those who have not held a passport for some time or have never held one—the Home Office has put in place temporary mitigating measures, which include issuing temporary operational guidance to carriers confirming that they may at their discretion accept an expired UK passport issued in 1989 or later alongside a valid non-visa national third-country passport. Carriers may also choose to accept alternative evidence and can contact the Home Office’s carrier support hub, which may be able to confirm British citizenship for those with a digital record on the UK’s immigration and passport system.

It is not the intention of the ETA scheme to penalise our citizens who choose to live abroad. That is why we have given as much time as possible to allow passengers in such a position to make the necessary arrangements and why we have now put in place additional short-term measures to assist our nationals when travelling to the UK.

I finish by noting that the approach we have taken is comparable to that taken by many of our closest international partners, including the USA, Canada and Australia, which have already introduced similar systems—for example, the electronic system for travel authorisation for visitors to the United States—and we expect the EU to launch its own version. We are doing these checks to ensure that illegal migrants and foreign criminals cannot set foot here through our ports and borders by screening them before they travel. I am delivering a more secure, modern border”.

My Lords, any suggestion that there have been insufficient transitional arrangements for the ETA system is surely for the sky. The scheme was introduced three years ago but was not made mandatory, to allow for people to adjust. It is absolutely right that the Government are now making this system mandatory and that dual nationals should have to enter using British passports—I am with the Minister on that. My question is: now that we have this system in place, how will the Government utilise the information for stronger immigration enforcement?

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support. As he knows, this position was introduced by the previous Government, and I am very pleased that we have been able to see it through. He asked how we will use this information for important border control. The whole purpose of the system is to have border control. As he probably knows, today we have had some new figures on immigration positions. They show that asylum hotels are at the lowest level for 18 months, which coincides with the UK Labour Government; the asylum backlog has fallen for the fourth quarter in a row to 64,426; and small boat arrivals are 9% lower than the peak in 2022. This is part of a government strategy to control our borders and ensure that they are firm. I welcome his support not just for this measure but for the wider government agenda.

My Lords, I am not sorry but pleased to disrupt this cosy consensus because, honestly, the Government’s temporary mitigation measure is no good at all. It leaves discretion to carriers on what evidence to accept for entry, resulting in, as was said by my friend in the other place, Manuela Perteghella, who tabled this Urgent Question yesterday,

“chaos for law-abiding British citizens”—[Official Report, Commons, 25/2/26; col. 351.]

and the separation of families. Why can this Government not do what Canada did: delay enforcement and create a low-cost, temporary authorisation? Why do this Government not do something similarly common-sense? We understand that controls should be properly enforced, but, for goodness’ sake, leave a breathing space for people for whom the impact is very personal.

As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, rightly said, this scheme has been in planning for three years; it was introduced by the previous Government and we have seen it through. There is always going to be a deadline at some point in any scheme, and the deadline for the introduction of this one was 26 February—today. What we have tried to do is to ensure that, if there are individuals who are impacted today, this week or in the near future, there is a temporary mitigation so that carriers may—at their discretion, as the noble Baroness said—accept an expired UK passport, alongside a non-visa national third-country passport, as evidence of British nationality.

Dual nationals may also ask their carrier to contact the Home Office’s carrier support hub, which is available now. Dual nationals overseas may also wish to contact the embassy. There is provision for urgent travel without a British passport in certain circumstances, as set out on GOV.UK. If there are particular problems, my colleague the Immigration Minister will hold drop-in sessions in the Houses of Parliament next week and the week after. Now that the scheme is available, dual nationals who wish to come to the UK can apply for either a British passport or a certificate that is a lifetime allowance on that dual-national approach.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his answers so far. He will recall that I have written to him on several occasions about an anomaly in the electronic travel authorisations that results in an impediment being placed in the way of the development of tourism in Northern Ireland. The majority of people who come from the United States to Ireland come through Dublin Airport and thus travel to Northern Ireland, adding to our local economy and revenue. However, the issue of ETAs presents an impediment and inconvenience. Therefore, will my noble friend and his ministerial colleagues in the Home Office look again at this issue to see whether an exemption is possible?

I am grateful and can reassure my noble friend that the Government wish to ensure that Northern Ireland benefits from inward tourist economy issues. We have, in discussing the proposals to date, worked with a range of partners, including the Northern Ireland tourism association, to ensure that the ETA requirement is communicated effectively and ultimately will not prove a barrier to people wishing to come to Northern Ireland or the rest of the United Kingdom to support their tourism objectives. We have looked at, and will look at, with the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency the impact of this issue, but I say to my noble friend that I cannot offer an exemption for visitors to Northern Ireland, because that would undermine the rationale of the scheme as a whole, which is to strengthen our borders, as I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower.

My Lords, the rules say that the personal details on the two passports must match, but Britons in Greece are among the those highlighting the fact that this is extraordinarily discriminatory against women, given that, for example, in Greece—and this applies to a number of other countries—there are rules about the name they must have on the Greek passport. If they are married to a Greek, they must have their maiden surname as well. The Minister may say that the Government have said that, under extraordinary, exceptional circumstances, the two names do not have to match. Can he confirm that that applies in this case, where people have no choice but to have two different names on their passport? More than that, can he guarantee that every agent for every airline and other travel company will understand that when people turn up to travel?

I will look at the specific instance that the noble Baroness has mentioned with regard to Greece, because that has not been drawn to my attention to date. I will contact her directly. We have made a strong effort, since the last Government introduced the principle of this, to inform and work with carriers to ensure that they understand the situation. Without repeating what I said earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, if she reads Hansard tomorrow, she will see that there are a number of mechanisms whereby individuals who feel they have a problem now in this temporary period of transition can follow that up with a range of authorities to make sure they get proper access. As ever, when a date is introduced, there will be a little friction, because that is always the case. But, in the long term, the ETA arrangements and the ability to provide stronger borders is a task worth working for.

My Lords, further to the point raised by my noble friend, the Minister himself confirmed that the Home Office’s current arrangements are that, “at their own discretion”, carriers “may” accept “some” expired British passports as appropriate documentation. Does he not accept that that is the worst of all worlds and that dual nationals will have no idea which carriers are going to accept the documentation, and under which circumstances? Given that he has admitted that there is a transitional period, would it not make a great deal of sense for the Government to tell all carriers that they can accept expired passports for a set period of time?