Deprivation of British citizenship and withdrawal of passports an order issued by the European Union or the United Nations which prevents a person travelling or entering a country other than the country in which they hold citizenship; or a declaration made under section 15 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. iv. A person may be prevented from benefitting from the possession of a passport if the Home Secretary is satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so. This may be the case where: a person has been repatriated from abroad at public expense and their debt has not yet been repaid. This is because the passport fee supports the provision of consular services for British citizens overseas; or a person whose past, present or proposed activities, actual or [reasonably] 84 suspected, are believed by the Home Secretary to be so undesirable that the grant or continued enjoyment of passport facilities is contrary to the public interest. There may be circumstances in which the application of legislative powers is not appropriate to the individual applicant but there is a need to restrict the ability of a person to travel abroad. The application of discretion by the Home Secretary will primarily focus on preventing overseas travel. There may be cases in which the Home Secretary believes that the past, present or proposed activities—actual or suspected— of the applicant or passport holder should prevent their enjoyment of a passport facility whether overseas travel was or was not a critical factor. The threshold for withdrawing a passport in the public interest has been reduced over time.85 Home Office guidance states that such decisions will usually involve national security. 86 The Home Affairs Committee has recommended that the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation should also review passport withdrawals. 87 The then Home Secretary Amber Rudd rejected that proposition in July 2017, saying that giving the Independent Reviewer oversight of non-statutory powers risked diluting the clarity of their remit.88 84 85 86 87 88 23 See B & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2651 (Admin), 12 October 2018, paragraph 26 Constitution Unit, Reforming the Prerogative (PDF), December 2022, p44 HM Passport Office, Royal Prerogative: caseworker guidance, version 6.0, 27 September 2022, p7 Home Affairs Committee, Counter-terrorism (PDF), 9 May 2014, HC 231 2013-14, p36 Home Office, Government response to the annual report on the operation of the terrorism acts in 2015, Cm 9489, 20 July 2017, p4 Commons Library Research Briefing, 18 December 2024