Section 4L Explained: Who Can Benefit From The New Pathway To British Citizenship?

Section 4L of the British Nationality Act 1981, ('The 1981 Act'), is a route to British citizenship for adults who would have been able to obtain citizenship, was it not for one or more of three reasons. This route aims to offer a pathway to citizenship for those who were affected by historical legislative unfairness. This was introduced by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 which contains other measures to deal with historical unfairness, some of which are explained in our post: Nationality and Borders Act 2022: Discretionary Adult Registration and Naturalisation Requirements.

Section 4L sets out the requirements for registration:

If an application is made for a person of full age and capacity ("P") to be registered as a British citizen, the Secretary of State may cause P to be registered as such a citizen if, in the Secretary of State's opinion, P would have been, or would have been able to become, a British citizen but for—