British Nationality Act 1981

Persons born outside the United Kingdom and the dependent territories after commencement

4 (1) A person born outside the United Kingdom and the dependent territories after commencement shall be entitled, on an application for his registration under this paragraph, to be so registered if the following requirements are satisfied, namely—

(a) that that person is and always has been stateless ; and

(b) that at the time of that person's birth his father or mother was a citizen or subject of a description mentioned in sub-paragraph (4); and

(c) that that person was in the United Kingdom or a dependent territory (no matter which) at the beginning of the period of three years ending with the date of the application and that (subject to paragraph 6) the number of days on which he was absent from both the United Kingdom and the dependent territories in that period does not exceed 270.

(2) A person entitled to registration under this paragraph—

(a) shall be registered under it as a citizen or subject of a description available to him in accordance with sub-paragraph (3); and

(b) if more than one description is so available to him, shall be registered under this paragraph as a citizen of whichever one or more of the descriptions so available to him is or are stated in the application under this paragraph to be wanted.

(3) For the purposes of this paragraph the descriptions of citizen or subject available to a person entitled to registration under this paragraph are—

(a) in the case of a person whose father or mother was at the time of that person's birth a citizen of a description mentioned in sub-paragraph (4), any description of citizen so mentioned which applied to his father or mother at that time ;

(b) in any other case, a British subject under this Act.

(4) The descriptions referred to in sub-paragraphs (1) to (3) are a British citizen, a British Dependent Territories citizen, a British Overseas citizen and a British subject under this Act.