Why is Britain's outdated passport policy still punishing thousands of families?

It is time for the Home Office to change children’s passports to prevent parents and kids with different names from being stopped at borders.

Nearly a year after an MP was detained at border control with her daughter, who does not share her family name, there has been no shift in an outdated policy which punishes families with different surnames and does little to protect children at risk of child trafficking.

Current Home Office advice dictates that “if you are travelling with a child (under 18) and are not the child’s parent, or may appear not to be the parent (for example, if you have a different family name), we may ask you a few questions to establish your relationship with the child.”

This can lead to border agents detaining parents - most often mothers - who do not share their child’s surname, and requiring them to produce a birth or adoption certificate (or a divorce or death certificate) in order to prove their relationship.

This is, the Home Offices says, designed to guard against child trafficking. It is also time-consuming, labour-intensive, and distressing for families.

Why the Home Office surname policy is out of date

More to the point, it is terrifically old-fashioned. Fewer than two thirds of women surveyed in a 2016 YouGov poll intended to take their partner’s surname upon marriage; does the Home Office expect one in three families to carry children’s birth certificates with them when they travel?

And it is highly unlikely to stop child trafficking, much of which, according to Europol, is carried out with forged passports showing identical surnames. It is also unlikely to stop child abduction in a custody battle, as in the case of feuding spouses who share a surname.

The Home Office is most likely to catch families who don’t conform to tradition, and slow their travel.

Eleven months ago, Tulip Siddiq, the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, called for a change in passport regulations after she was stopped with her daughter at UK border control until her husband joined them, because she and her child did not share a surname.

The Labour MP later said that an estimated 600,000 women over the past five years had been asked to prove they were related to their children when taking their families through UK border control, leaving many stranded for hours if they did not have marriage or birth certificates or were travelling without their partners.

Ms Siddiq said: “This issue is close to my heart. I am one of many mothers who has faced intense questioning at border control, simply because my daughter has a different surname to me. It was this experience that led me to hold a parliamentary debate on the campaign to include both parents’ names in children’s passports.

“In that debate, I stressed the importance of measures to prevent child trafficking, whilst arguing for a simple change that would result in fewer innocent parents facing hostile checks at the border.

“The Minister’s response was constructive and offered real hope that there would be change. He promised that the Home Office would ‘try to find a way forward’. Eight months on and it is a great shame to see an absence of progress.

“I will therefore be looking to bring this issue back to the Commons once Parliament returns from recess.”

A Home Office spokesperson said that the department was “still considering” Ms Siddiq’s call to put the names of each child’s legal guardians into their passports to avoid the confusion at border control.

The spokesperson said: “We have a duty to safeguard children and to prevent people trafficking, child sexual exploitation and other crimes committed against children. That is why Border Force staff need to be content that the adult travelling with the child has parental responsibility or parental authority has been given to travel with the child.

“We aim to do this quickly and with as minimal disruption to passengers as possible. Having birth or adoption certificates with you when you travel through the border can help speed up this process.”

What should the Home Office do?

In the modern world, it is common for one parent to have a different surname to their child. It would be far more efficient to officially print the names of the legal guardian/parent of each child in his or her passport.