When travel’s f
Crossing borders with a youngster can be fraught with problems when names vary, writes Jane Bradley
Travelling with a child is stressful enough at the best of times. But fearing that you could be stopped at passport control and quizzed over your right to take your own offspring out of the country – and in a worst case scenario, prevented from continuing on your journey – makes it a whole lot more stressful.
An increasing number of reports have circulated of mothers and father who do not share a surname with their son or daughter being stopped not only abroad, but also by UK passport control.
Anecdotally, I have heard of parents who now feel the need to carry a copy of a child’s birth certificate, their marriage certificate, or even a permission letter from their partner or former partner if they are travelling with their child alone.
Earlier this week, MP Tulip Siddiq revealed that she had been stopped and questioned about her right to travel with her daughter on a Eurostar journey from France this summer, until her husband joined them and they were allowed to continue.
She is now petitioning the Home Office to change children’s passports so that both parents’ names can be listed, saying she is being “penalised” for keeping her maiden name.
“Things are changing and the law needs to catch up,” she said. “I want to find a way to change this. I don’t know why I should be penalised for not changing my name. I got married aged 30, I lived my life, I had a reputation under my maiden name.”
Siddiq became separated from her husband, Chris Percy, when the family were queuing for passport control, after she was granted permission to take their 18-monthold child through a fast track queue with her buggy.
She handed over the passports to an official who asked her, “Who is this girl?”.
Siddiq says she felt particularly vulnerable because her daughter looks more like her husband than like her, which she believes sparked concerns.
“It wasn’t exactly hostile but there was a real air of suspicion, I was made to feel like I had done something wrong,” she said. “And they said I could leave my child with them when I went to look for my husband.”
It is incredible how so many people – passport officials and the