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.
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 only while they were abroad.
Under the rules, dual nationals risk being denied boarding if they do not present a British passport, current or expired, or a “certificate of entitlement”, costing £589, attached to the passport of their second nationality, to prove their right to enter the UK.
On Thursday the migration minister Mike Tapp dismissed as “absurd” claims that the government had failed to properly communicate the new rules.
Scrivens is hoping the airline will show clemency when they turn up in Copenhagen on Friday, but says if they don’t, their children may have to stay with their grandparents while at least one parent returns home to apply for their first British passports.
His case highlights the human cost of a new rule that the Home Office introduced without effective communication to dual citizens around the world.
“Two weeks ago we travelled to Norway and Denmark to visit family. My children were both born in the United Kingdom – 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.
“At 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.
“We 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,” he said.
Scrivens has written to his MP, Plaid Cymru’s Ann Davies, to ask that she “raise 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”.
Davies said she was “deeply distressed” to learn of the situation facing Scrivens and his family, adding: “My 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.”
She added that it was clear that the government’s decisions were “having real and deeply distressing consequences” for her constituents, describing communications on the change as “disastrous”.
“I urge the government to act swiftly to prevent other families from experiencing the same hardship faced by Mr Scrivens and his family,” she added.
During an urgent question in which the Guardian was praised for bringing the plight of some dual nationals to light, Tapp said: “I 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,” he said.
The measures, he said, “are making our border more secure and they are very much in line with what other nations are doing”.
But the Liberal Democrat MP Manuela Perteghella, a British Italian, sharply criticised the migration minister. “Communication has been wholly inadequate. Putting guidance on a website is not a communications strategy,” she said.
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.
“It worked. Why has the government refused to adopt the same commonsense approach?” she asked during an urgent question in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
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.
Davis raised concerns over a 91-year-old constituent 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.
