ajax

Ah! Thanks, I didn't know that the three-year rule only applied to spouses of British nationals - I thought it was all EEA nationals.

The UKBA page (in its typical maddening vagueness) seems to imply that you do not need a year of ILR as well before applying for naturalisation on the basis of being the spouse of a non-British EEA national - rather, that you only need five years' worth of residency:

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/br...tnerofcitizen/

The following excerpt does not specify nationality of the sponsoring spouse/CP:

mtkeller

A VIP pass for queue jumping? That'd certainly not be very British! I think the thing I'd ask for my MP to address more relates to inquiring about inefficiencies in scheduling that creates severe backlogs at certain times of day and the problem of IRIS registration only being available at T5. Perhaps suggest that there be a system by which one can make an appointment if holding a BP for another terminal to gain access beyond security at T5, if UKBA cannot staff enrolment at the other terminals. (US CBP issues gate passes for those applying for Global Entry, a similar but not identical, queue-bypassing method. Of course, they also charge $100 per five years for it.) It'd be great to see a path for UK visa holders to enter (for second and subsequent entries) using the EU queue or some other queue, but as was mentioned above, I think it would likely only work with e-passports.

As to staffing levels, I'm wondering if UKBA passport control agents are cross-trained to do other UKBA tasks. Perhaps when there are queues, they could be at passport control, and when there's lower demand, they could be in some back office at LHR processing paperwork and the like. (Most likely, at present this would really involve taking some staff that handle such things and training them to also work at the border, perhaps moving them to LHR for work.)

Oh, certainly one cannot expect to breeze across the border in 10 seconds. Even a 20-minute queue can be expected. However, if one and two hour waits are becoming routine, this is bad for the UK in terms of time efficiency for business travellers (many of whose companies won't pay for F/J, so they can't use FastTrack) and the impression made on tourists on their first arrival.

Aw, you mean I'd have to take my fake wife everywhere with me? That seems incredibly expensive Even if I tried such a thing, I think I'd be on the fast track to deportation, since it wouldn't take much investigation for the UKBA to figure out I'd suddenly gone straight after meeting this nice Eastern European lady. (Now if the UK does actually get marriage equality... Oh, wait, who am I kidding? I'm too much of a rule follower to even contemplate something like that.)

Christopher

As I understand it (and I agree that the UKBA page is in places quite delightful in its vagueness), if you are the spouse of civil partner of a British citizen, the qualifying period of residence is 3 years and you must be settled (i.e., in this case, with indefinite leave to remain) in the UK on the date that you make your application for naturalisation.

For all others, the qualifying period is 5 years to gain settled status (indefinite leave to remain, or permanent residence if EU/EEA) and you must have held that status for 1 year before applying, making 6 years in total. (The exception to this 6 years would be people who are not British citizens but who have the right of abode in the UK, since they are deemed settled from the moment they arrive in the UK. They therefore do not need to wait the extra year.)

The reason for this apparent mismatch and the extra year is that the previous government, in its wisdom, altered the legislation in such a way that the requirements for settled status and the requirements for naturalisation became "uncoupled" from each other. Whether the intention was in fact to extend the period needed to be eligible for naturalisation to 6 years or whether that was just an unintended consequence of the tinkering with the legislation is a good question.

The previous government had lots of complicated plans for naturalisation, such as "earned citizenship" and "provisional citizenship", all of which now seem to have been consigned to the dustbin of history — at least, we can hope so.

Christopher

These (my emboldening of the text) are, I think, strong arguments to put to an MP.

ajax

This would make sense, but of course the wording is very un-specific. I would not be surprised at all - in fact I would think it quite appropriate - if the government showed preference to the spouses of UK nationals over other EEA nationals. I cannot imagine any country could expect any less.

Yes - I have become very aware of the uncoupling of granting of settled status and approval of naturalisation applications. The thresholds to meet either are in some cases very different, so that one can be entirely qualified for one and not the other, for no apparently good reason.


ISTR that one of the first things done by Teresa May was to announce the scrapping of Labour's plans for earned and provisional citizenship - like many things that the Labour government did in this area, it was well intentioned but impractical, unworkable and complicated, and would have required sizeable and expensive bureaucracy to adminster for arguably marginal benefit. Kind of symbolic for the whole Labour government, now that I think about it.

mattk

The last three weeks for me has seen IRIS at LHR T4 out of action. I can't imagine with the e-passport coming on-line that it's got much more life left in it. Not sure if it's on the way out or just plain broken.

Regarding the e-passport, the amount of failures I see when I'm queuing up and the fact someone has to steward the users seems a bit of a failure to me.

Any thoughts anyone?

mtkeller

I was through T4 on Thursday morning and all the IRIS gates were working, as they were on 8 May in the evening. Sadly, I just got to sit there and stare longingly at the IRIS gates.

mattk

Are you sure you mean IRIS? There's only one IRIS machine at T4, the others next to it, and there are 3, are the e-passport gates. For those you need an EU passport with a chip in it.

mtkeller

Hmm, then I'm not sure. I blew past the signs since the non-EU queue was massive, so I didn't notice if there was signage about IRIS being down. I probably was looking at the e-passport gates.

mattk

There is never any signage to say IRIS is down, they stick sometimes a notice on the entry doors or put a barrier across the entrance.

If the machines you were looking at were large frames with big displays and lots of colours then those are the new e-passport machines.

rwoman

I have not had a problem with the T4 IRIS gates working - they are just blocked off occasionally...usually in slow times.

ajax

And even when they're blocked off it does not mean that they are not functional. On more than one occasion, I have seen passengers simply move the little cordon out of the way and walk right into the machine - which has been working just fine - much to the futile annoyance of the queue attendant.

rwoman

True - I may have done that once...

rwoman

All,

I flew BHX-DXB-KBL-DXB-BHX this past week. After clearing security on the outbound, I noticed a sign on the IRIS registration door stating the office was closed due to review of the program.

When I returned, the IRIS lane @ BHX was open and I cleared with no problem.

robin

cribbj

Apologies in advance - I didn't read all 104 posts on the previous 7 pages of the thread

Have IRIS renewals been discontinued? I've been a happy user of the system for 4-5 years now and wish to renew, but have not been able to find an IRIS office open whenever I pass through T4 or T5 at LHR.