to want both parents names in kids' passports

[surfandturfcamp]

The suggestion is to change the law to include both parents’ names in children’s passports - there is an online petition - set up by MP Tulip Siddiq.

I think its good that there are checks at borders; to avoid child abduction. I would like to have both my kids names officially in the passport to make travelling simpler.

Extract from petition -
600,000 women have been stopped at the border in the past five years to prove they are related to their own child.

Women feel vulnerable and it causes delays - as well as being a burden for border agents.

We must recognise that, increasingly, children will not share their mothers' surnames.

The problem is the assumption that shared surname = permission, not the other way round.

No, I disagree. We don't share a surname. The presumption is parent of child = permission.

My ex wouldn't have my permission to take our DC out of the country. That's the reason I have their passports. If he had them (I have no idea why or how he would get hold of them) then his name being in there would mean nothing as far as permission goes.

Yes yes yes. Parental rights should not be based on a guess by a border officer based on a child’s name or appearance.

What about kids that dads don't want to know and arent on the birth certificate like my son?

They do have the same surname, I should add

Presumably the passport names would be taken from the BC. No name on BC = no name on passport

The vast majority of international child kidnapping cases are parental abduction. So not sure what this achieves from a kidnapping perspective.

Can you link the petition please?

It's ridiculous to carry a birth certificate, marriage certificate, and a letter of permission (new, signed in front of a witness) from the father every time one travels, and then struggle with all these flimsy valuable documents in a folder while holding a toddler who's been traveling all day and has not had enough sleep. There's a document for travel, it's called A PASSPORT.

Hi araiwa - why is it a waste of time and money if it takes less time for customs officer and less time for parents to go through customs?
It is ink on a passport adding both parents names - no tech kit or other investment required?

Saying that I agree that its imperfect for grandparents and friends. I had to get a letter of consent notiarized for one of my kids to travel with another family which was quite hard to organise.

I would rather a digital solution to the letters of consent to let a parent allow a grandparent or other adult or school to travel with a child with a digital audit trail.

This would cause major problems in instances where court-ordered written permission is needed for the child to be taken out of the country. How would border patrol know that permission was not given? People other than parents travel with children too so I don't see how parental names on a passport help anything.

Sure petition here
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/201699

I never considered this as a potential issue. I do use our family name as my surname but my passport is still in my maiden name as I had to renew it for a trip a month before the wedding and I'm too cheap to pay out for a whole new passport until the one I have expires.
I'm surprised children and parents names not matching up is seen as a red flag tbh, I imagine it's fairly common place these days.

Weirdly I've only ever been stopped coming back in. I could understand more if it was on leaving the UK!

Broccoli can you explain how having the parent's names in the child's passport could remedy any of those issues that you describe?

I travel with my niece and always make sure we copy both her and her Mums passport onto a sheet of A4 paper which her Mum states she is happy for me to take my niece out of country on X date and return on X date and signs. Customs can see the signature on letter matches the one on her Mums passport. We take 2 copies in case one is lost. Never no problem.

I don't see that there is any way border officers could know (even digitally?) which kids are banned from leaving the country with which parents.

There isn't even really any clarity in what the child abduction laws actually are from country to country. In most you can take the child for less than 90 days. However some courts think you still need consent for a holiday. Some parents are no contact/little contact, some parents are on supervised contact only.

A border guard is never going to know whether that child is able to be taken out of the country or not, realistically. You'd have to have a notarised letter of consent for every trip and that isn't realistic.

From experience, it is pretty easy to alert airports & authorities of abduction threats. So if your ex took your child & you had fears they would skip the country, things can be put in place sharpish. It took my ex less than 30 minutes to tell (presumably) the police i was abducting my DD....i was stopped at passport control & had to explain the situation. Having his name on the passport would presumably just make border control assume i was okay to leave with DD?

I've also had mine maliciously try to stop me from going on holiday, and I spent the five days before the holiday racing about getting an emergency order from the court which overruled him. I don't see how you would communicate this at the border.

All it really meant was that I was covered if he called the police and attempted to have me done for kidnap. I could show them the order.

But my children's father is on the bc but doesn't see her now. His only on he bc and my sons and not on our other two. I was glad I was able to apply for a passport without needing his permission. Would this now mean I need his permission in future?