Eric Joyce – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Eric Joyce on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether any UK citizens would involuntarily lose resident citizenship as a result of Scottish independence.

Karen Bradley

In the event of a vote for independence, decisions about UK citizenship would
rest with the UK Government; the basis for entitlement to Scottish citizenship
would be for the government of an independent Scottish state to decide.

The UK has historically been tolerant of plural nationalities, and therefore it
is likely that it would be possible for an individual to hold both British and
Scottish citizenship. However, under current rules British citizens living
outside the UK cannot pass their British nationality on more than one
generation. So, the children of British citizens living in an independent
Scotland would be British citizens, but their children and subsequent
generations would not be.

The government of the continuing UK would also need to consider whether all
British citizens living in Scotland could retain their British citizenship upon
independence. This cannot be guaranteed and could be dependent on any residence
requirements or proof of affinity to the continuing UK. It is not possible to
predict now what the decision of a future government of the continuing UK might
be in this area.