Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Moylan

Report stage
Monday 3rd July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Ludford is unable to be in her place today. I am introducing her Amendments 114 and 116 in this group, which remove children from the effects of the loss of citizenship pathways under the Bill. On these Benches we welcome the government amendments removing the original Clause 30(4) from the Bill, which would have barred British citizenship children born in the UK after 7 March 2023 if a parent had entered the UK illegally. We also welcome the amendment that removes bars to citizenship under the British Nationality Act 1981—the settled route and the 10-year route. I thank the Minister for the helpful meeting regarding British national (overseas) citizens. I look forward to hearing from him, perhaps on Wednesday, that BNO passport holders will get clearer and correct information from immigration officials in the future.

However, despite the Government’s amendments, there are still key risks for children who the Government admit will rarely qualify for citizenship under Clause 2. That is why Amendments 114 and 116 remove children from the loss of routes to UK citizenship. The fundamental problem that needs to be resolved here is that, as we discussed in the debate on the previous group, as children arrive in the UK they are put under the responsibility of a local authority. As minors, our state decrees that these children cannot make decisions for themselves, so the logic must also be that when they were brought into the UK they were not deemed to have the capacity to make that decision. We noted that the Minister said that there is a potential safeguard under Clause 35 if a decision were to breach the UK’s obligation under the ECHR, but it was just reported again, on Saturday in the i newspaper, that the Government want to remove the UK from the ECHR.

The Government’s intention to prevent these children obtaining British citizenship would close off all the major routes to citizenship if their parents were irregular entrants: the discretionary route, the settled route and the 10-year route. On these Benches we believe that children who are deemed by the state not to be able to make decisions about themselves should not be penalised by the Bill, particularly because they are in the care of the state. On these grounds, I beg to move Amendment 114.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 115 and 117 to 125 in this group, all standing in my name. They have a similar approach to that set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, but the focus is rather different, as I shall explain.

I support the general thrust of the Bill; the argument for the Bill is that it creates a number of deterrents to people arriving in this country illegally. The principal deterrent is of course that of immediate, or at least rapid, removal to another country. But the Bill goes further than that and also seeks to deprive those who have fallen foul of the tests in Clause 2 of their subsequent right to apply for naturalisation as a British subject or, more crucially and to the point of my amendments, their right to apply for registration as a British subject at any point in the future.

Noble Lords are well aware that there is a great distinction between naturalisation and registration. Naturalisation is a concession by the state to those who are not British, to allow them to become British. It is perfectly natural that there should be conditions attached to that, and those conditions very often can and do include good behaviour conditions—such as, perhaps, if the Bill passes, not having previously arrived illegally in a small boat.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Moylan

Report stage
Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to strike a jarring note, although I do not intend to wander into the potentially treacherous waters of the divisibility or otherwise of the Crown. I think the Government have rather got it right on these amendments and noble Lords are barking up the wrong tree.

As I said in Committee and at Second Reading, noble Lords in some cases appeared to have misconceived this Bill throughout as if it were an enforcement measure against criminal or quasi-criminal activity, but it is not and it has never been intended as such; nor does it have that effect.

We come to an amendment that says explicitly that no preferential treatment may be conferred on

“suppliers connected to or recommended by members of the House of Commons or members of the House of Lords”.

To the extent that that is already a criminal act, and corruption is involved, criminal proceedings would be the right thing to undertake and not proceedings under this Bill, which is essentially administrative in character and carries no punitive clauses. The remedy for breaches under this Bill in most cases is for a supplier to sue for damages and the fact that they have been treated badly or unfairly. This is not a Bill intended to combat corruption.

If noble Lords feel it is required to explicitly exclude Members of this House and of another place, why is it not required to explicitly exclude giving preferential treatment to your first cousins, or your family in a broader sense, or your best friends, or people you were at school with, or all sorts of other persons who perhaps should be listed on the face of the Bill?

I briefly come to the procurement review unit—

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

Does the noble Lord not agree that Clause 40 allows the Government to set up such a preferential channel?