More than a million Brits risk being caught out by new passport rule launched this year – with kids stranded abroad

A NEW passport rule introduced earlier this year has already caught out a number of families. As many as 1.2million people can no longer use their foreign passport to enter the country. Brits who hold two passports can no longer use their foreign document to enter the country Credit: Alamy The change was predicted to affect around 1.2million Brits Credit: Alamy These passport rules came into play in February and mean that British nationals have to carry a valid British passport to return to the UK. They can no longer use their foreign passport to enter the country. Sign up for the Travel newsletter Thank you! An alternative is to have a “certificate of entitlement” costing £589. Despite being in place for five months, the new rules have been catching people out. In one case, a British student was stuck in Rome and missed six weeks of school – she was unable to return home for over a month. The 15-year-old girl had been visiting her grandmother in Italy in April of this year. When it was time to return home, she was turned away at the airport because she didn’t have a valid British passport. The girl’s father sought help from the Home Office and the Foreign Office. Most read in Travel He told The Guardian: “The embassy, the Home Office and the Foreign Office bounced us from one to another. “They are playing with people’s lives, a child’s education. It is loathsome.” Colette was returning to the UK for a wedding but was refused boarding with her children Eventually, she was issued with an emergency travel document. In another case, one British woman was caught out when she was trying to travel from Copenhagen to Manchester with her two children. Colette Bjorn-Alderson, who has lived in the UK for 28 years, had been in the Danish country since April, but was returning to the UK with her six-week- old and 23-month-old for a wedding. However, her two children only had Danish passports which meant they didn’t have valid travel documents for returning to the UK. She told The Times that she felt “unwelcome in my own country” after being turned away from the flight. Colette sent photocopies of her documents to the Home Office – but ultimately the decision was made that the family could not fly. In June, dad-of-two, Kyle Harris, was refused boarding onto his flight from Kefalonia in Greece back to the UK due to only having an American passport. The 39-year-old had been on holiday with his wife and two sons and the family has had to extend their time away as a result. Comment now