British girl, 15, stranded in Rome for six weeks due to new passport rules

Under new government rules, dual nationals risk being denied boarding if they do not present a British passport. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Under new government rules, dual nationals risk being denied boarding if they do not present a British passport. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images British girl, 15, stranded in Rome for six weeks due to new passport rules The dual national, who missed six weeks of school, is latest of several children affected by recent Home Office policy A British girl was prevented from returning to her school in the UK for six weeks after a trip to see her grandmother in Italy because of the Home Office’s new rule requiring dual British nationals to have a British passport to get back into the country. The 15-year-old, who was stranded in Rome in April, is just the latest of a number of children and young adults hit by a new Labour government rule that came into force in February. Under the rules , dual nationals risk being denied boarding of a flight, train or ferry if they do not present a British passport, current or expired, or a “certificate of entitlement”, costing £589, attached to the passport of their second nationality. Rowan Somerville, an author and the father of the 15-year-old, has sharply criticised the Home Office and the Foreign Office for being unable to help a British child return to school because of a new rule they created. Others hit by the new Home Office rule included a young British woman trying to come home from Spain and children returning from Denmark . Many have complained of inadequate communication with the public. In April, Somerville’s daughter was refused boarding for the flight home to the UK, where she lives. “The embassy, the Home Office and the Foreign Office bounced us from one to another,” he said. “They are playing with people’s lives, a child’s education. It is loathsome,” said Somerville. The Home Office could not issue the girl’s parents with a temporary passport on the grounds she did not have a British passport in the first place, said Somerville. Her school implored government departments to intervene, writing to say they were “increasingly concerned about her prolonged absence from education”. Somerville’s local MP Joe Powell also made representations to the Home Office and eventually the FCDO issued her with a emergency travel document. View image in fullscreen Rowan Somerville, whose 15-year-old daughter missed weeks of school, said the embassy, the Home Office and the Foreign Office ‘bounced us from one to another’. Photograph: Rowan Somerville Powell said he would be writing to the immigration minister, Mike Tapp, to ensure no other schoolchildren are left stranded by the Home Office rules, which were not communicated meaningfully to the public. “Despite having a British parent, two valid passports, and having been at school in the UK since nursery, changes to Home Office rules resulted in her being stuck in Rome and missing six weeks o