Reasserting Rights to British Citizenship Through Registration of the United Kingdom and Colonies.12 Anyone who had done so prior to the commencement of the Act became a British citizen by s 11(1) on the Act’s commencement on 1 January 1983. For Commonwealth citizens who had not exercised the right to so register by the time of its commencement, the Act made provision under s 7 for registration as a British citizen. Section 7 made express that such registration was by entitlement. However, the right to register as a British citizen under s 7 was time limited. At the time, Ministers emphasised that it was the government’s desire and intention that people exercise their entitlement to citizenship under s 7.13 When pressed as to why it was then necessary or appropriate to place a time limit on the entitlement, Ministers suggested that it was better to focus the minds of those with the entitlement on ensuring they exercised it rather than allow, by passage of time, their entitlement to become in effect lost to them by a practical inability to demonstrate their circumstances in years long past.14 Whereas it was said that the government would make every effort to bring the legislation’s effect to the attention of the people affected, it is difficult to credit Ministers with a firm commitment to do so, or understanding of what was required, given that in the very next breath it was argued that it should not be particularly difficult for those concerned at the changes being made to draw attention of people to those changes including, in particular, their right and need to register.15 It is a dreadful irony that, at the same time, Ministers also emphasised to Parliament that Commonwealth citizens settled in the UK had ‘nothing to fear’ in any event.16 Decades later, after it had ultimately been exposed just how much so many people did indeed have to fear from developments in immigration policy, it is poignant that a critical element of the government’s remedial action has been its offer of naturalisation without charge to Commonwealth citizens settled in the UK prior to 1973. Given that registration in 1983 would have cost £35 whereas naturalisation in 2018 cost £1,250, the waiving of the fee for naturalisation was a necessary step for effectively putting people in the position they would and should have been had the promise to make people aware and encourage their take up of registration in the 1980s been made good.17 However, as discussed below, there was at least one way in which such restitution was not provided. This concerns the good character requirement. Future generations born in the UK Much time during the parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill was spent considering the circumstances of children born in the UK, who would not be born British citizens under the Act. In bringing an end to the application of ius soli, the Act was intended to reserve British citizenship for people connected to the UK and to exclude, among others, people who, although born in the UK, grow up somewhere else. It was not intended to exclude children born and grown up in the UK from recognition by citizenship of the connection they share with their peers, who 12 13 14 15 16 17 In doing so, these reflected the provision made in s 6, British Nationality Act 1981 whereby British subjects could register by entitlement as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies if they had become ordinarily resident in the UK for at least 12 months. See eg Hansard HL, 21 July 1981: Cols 183–184 per Lord Belstead, Minister of State. Hansard HL, 21 July 1981: Col 183 per Lord Belstead.The report of the independent advisor, Wendy Williams, Windrush Lessons Learned Review, HC 93, March 2020, confirms at p 59 that in the event the Home Office discouraged some people from registering their British citizenship while generally assuring people that it was not necessary to do so. Hansard HL, 21 July 1981: Col 184 per Lord Belstead. Hansard HL, 21 July 1981: Col 174 per Lord Belstead. The Immigration and Nationality (Requirements for Naturalisation and Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2018, SI 2018/618 were laid before Parliament within barely a month of the government’s first formal recognition of the injustice done to the Windrush generation and took effect on 30 May 2018. 143