Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 15 May 2006.
Jim McGovern
Labour, Dundee West
2:30,
15 May 2006
My hon. Friend will be aware of the case of Osama Obade Sattar—a nine-year-old Dundee boy stranded in Pakistan because he was refused permission to return to the UK on his mother's Pakistani passport. This morning, my office received a call from UKvisas advising that young Osama could apply for a Pakistani visa to allow him to return. Given that he was born in Dundee, he has lived there since his birth, and both his parents are British citizens, can we not find a better solution? What reassurances can my hon. Friend offer the understandably distressed Sattar family?
Annotations
Sam Evans
Posted on 16 May 2006 6:44 pm (Report this annotation)
The solution, if he and his parents are British citizens as suggested, is for him to get a British passport, just as any other British child who wishes to travel abroad must do.
The fault lies with his parents for failing to get him a passport. Some fault is shared by the airline that flew him to Pakistan in the first place for not pointing out that he wouldn't be able to re-enter Britain as an entry on his mother's passport.
One might also ask why British citizens living in Britain are entering the country on a Pakistani passport.