Closed petition The Parental Passport Campaign: A petition for changes that would allow parents and legal guardians to be named on childrens' passports

Closed on 8 October 2014

Modern Britain is made up of a myriad of different family types, with nearly two million children living with cohabiting, unmarried parents. As people increasingly choose to cohabit with their partner, re-marry after a divorce or simply decide not to share surnames, more children will be caught in the middle.

We want to give parents the option for their children’s passports to identify the names of their parents or legal guardians. At present, only the child’s name is given, which means parents with different names often suffer harassment and delays when crossing borders.

A simple change to passports would reduce the trauma to parents and children, and reduce unnecessary delays. To reach as many parents as possible, we believe this should be on an opt-out basis. This change to passports will allow parents who do not share their children’s surname to be easily recognised as legal guardians by border staff.