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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am heartened to some extent by what the noble Lord said about exercising discretion where it can be proved that the child has a long-standing connection with the UK. In both the examples that I gave, the mother was absent abroad at the time of the child’s birth, but that does not mean that the parents were not continuously resident in the UK and that they had not been so resident in the period leading up to the child’s birth. On the basis that the noble Lord’s discretion will be exercised in circumstances such as I have outlined, I am happy to withdraw Amendment 42A. However, perhaps I may say a word on Amendment 50, which specifically applies to stateless children. I thought that it was consistent with the rest of our legislation, but perhaps we will have to return to that on another occasion. Amendment 42A (to Amendment 42) withdrawn. Amendment 42 agreed.