Britain plans to abolish ancestry visa

LONDON: Britain is proposing to sever its historic ties to tens of thousands of Commonwealth nationals who have an automatic right through descent to live and work here.

The small print of this week’s Home Office green paper charting new pathways to citizenship suggests the ancestry visa might be abolished.

The visa enables people aged 17 or over whose grandparents were born in UK to come for four years and eventually apply to stay. It is used mainly by young Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans coming to UK to work and as a base to explore Europe.

The ancestry provisions were introduced in 1972 after legislation the previous year overhauled Commonwealth citizenship rights Those entering under the UK ancestry route have free access to the labour market on entry.

However, the Government is in the process of introducing a points-based system for work permits and tougher rules for obtaining citizenship. The green paper says: “We need to decide whether a Commonwealth national’s ancestral connections to the UK are sufficient to allow them to come here to work without the need to satisfy a resident labour market test.”