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Call for passport system to be updated, as 600,000 parents are stopped at UK ports because child has different family name (19 May 2014)

Date: 19/05/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Call for passport system to be updated, as 600,000 parents are stopped at UK ports because child has different family name

The Daily Mail reports that as many as 600,000 parents are being stopped and questioned at the UK’s airports and ports – as well as international railway stations such as Eurostar – because the passport system does not recognise that children and parents may have different surnames.

Children’s passports were introduced in the 1990s and list the child’s name and date and place of birth only.

Because of an increase in families becoming fractured as a result of divorce or children being born to cohabiting rather than married parents, the passport system’s technology is now becoming out-of-date.

Some parents have been stopped by passport officials and have been forced to prove they are the legal guardians of their children because they have a different surname.

Cohabiting couples with children are one of the fastest growing family groups in the UK – but mothers who remarry and take a new surname, or who marry and retain their maiden name on their passport are also being stopped at passport control if their child has their father’s surname.

The Border Agency is phasing in anti-trafficking units at major UK airports like Heathrow and Gatwick and UK ports, to detect children and adults who are being trafficked into the UK before they disappear into the sex trade in Britain or into jobs involving modern-day slavery.

The Home Office says that it has a duty to monitor child trafficking and child abduction at UK borders – and is advising parents with different family names from their children to travel with additional documentation to support their identity as the child’s parent..

Campaign group the Parental Passport Campaign is to meet with MPs to discuss persuading the Home Secretary to change the rules so that a child’s parent and guardian can be named on the passport of a child under 18 years’ old.

The campaign group’s founder Helen Perry from Weybridge in Surrey says that her children use their father’s family name and she has been stopped at passport control and asked to prove she is their mother on several occasions.

She launched the campaign to have parents and guardians named on child passports in 2010.

Mrs Perry says that the passport system has not kept up with changes to the nuclear family in Britain.

“Modern Britain is made up of a myriad of different family types – with nearly millions of children living with cohabiting, unmarried parents.

“Parents with different names often suffer harassment and delays when crossing borders. A simple change to passports would reduce the trauma to parents and children, and reduce unnecessary delays.

“Passports are out-of-date and have not kept up with the modern family. UK passports should make it easier for families to travel, not make it more difficult,” she said.

A YouGov survey has found that nearly 30% of parents say their child does not share a surname with both parents.

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