European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Kennedy of Shaws and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

It is the very opposite. It is the fact that peace has been secured. That is one of the great achievements of our being in Europe and working so closely with our European neighbours. It is the product of collaboration. This is not about the potential threat of terrorism, but about a celebration of the fact that we have achieved peace and a recognition of one of the mechanisms that has helped to secure that.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether it might not be an idea to hear from the Minister at this stage. I have been watching the debate and it is clear that we are covering a lot of ground that we will cover in Committee. We are in Committee now and not at Second Reading. It would be appropriate if we heard from the Minister.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Kennedy of Shaws and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, we will hear from the Conservative Benches and then from the Labour Benches, and then from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson.

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, my simple point is this. Parliament will pronounce for or against the results of the Government’s negotiations to withdraw from the European Union in due course. It may possibly be that in 2019 or whenever the negotiations are completed, Parliament will feel that it would be wise to test the opinion of the country through another referendum, but that should be determined at that final stage and in those circumstances, not now. It would be wholly contrary to our constitution and traditions to make a binding provision for another referendum at this early point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Baroness is drifting to a Second Reading speech. A specific proposal is before this House: the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. I would be grateful if noble Lords could be brief—a lot of people want to speak—and address the substance of that amendment, not other aspects to which they may wish to draw the attention of the House.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

I certainly will not continue to make a speech, but I want to say that the reason why people are asking that this matter eventually goes to the people is that we started with the people. Parliament has said, “We are bound by the fact that people have given us a direction of travel”. When it comes to the end of that journey, they have the right to be heard too.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Kennedy of Shaws and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am sorry. It is the turn of the Labour Party. I suggest we hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I also have my name on Amendment 16A with the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and on Amendment 38. I want to reiterate the point about the position at the time of the referendum. During the campaign, reassurance was given to EU nationals living here, and to our citizens living abroad in the European Union, that their rights would be protected. They were told this would happen under the international law of acquired rights.

As chair of the European Union Justice Sub-Committee, along with my colleagues on the committee, I heard evidence on the international law of acquired rights. It became very clear to us—and this is the basis of the report which is available to all noble Lords—that international law does not provide the kind of protections that were being given as a reassurance to those many people. Our committee embarked on an evidence-taking session which showed us that, with regard to the position of European Union nationals living here as well as our citizens living around Europe, they would be in extremis if we did not take steps very quickly to secure their rights.

As we have heard, more than 3 million European Union nationals live in this country. But they are not the only ones experiencing anguish; it is also their family members, their employers and their neighbours. This will affect a whole cadre of people beyond the people themselves. I suspect that our committee is at the receiving end of the greatest number of communications from those people about their distress, their anxiety, the fears of their children and their fears about their future. So we should not think that this is about only 3.5 million people and that we are preoccupied—as the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, seems to think we are—with the rights only of people living here. We have received a huge mailbag from people around Europe who are fearful of what their pension positions are. They are fearful because they retired to places such as Spain and now wonder what their prospects are: they worry about their healthcare situation and so on.

When we say our position should be that we leave it to the great negotiation and that it should be number one on the list, I want to remind, for example, the most reverend Primate that our Prime Minister did not go to Europe and say that we would give a unilateral declaration. She said that she wanted a negotiation before the triggering of Article 50. It was not on the table because, as we know, negotiation begins only after that. What she should have done—and what we urge her to do—is say that we will take the principled position of honouring our responsibilities to people who live and work with us, because of the impact on their lives, the lives of their families and the lives of all the people around them.

I would like to explain something. We discovered while taking evidence something that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Oates—that the law around permanent residence is incredibly complex and byzantine. In fact, Lord Justice Jackson described it as being such that its complexity would even have made Byzantine emperors envious. We have taken evidence about the impact of this on people making applications. The new piece of evidence that I offer to the noble Lord, Lord Howard, is this: we now know that in the period since the referendum, 30% of the applications made for permanent residence have been rejected. The refusals have been on the grounds of incomplete documentation or—and this is one of the most painful things to hear—that women who took time off from employment to have children did not pursue the private sickness insurance that the Government say was required. They are supposed to provide documentation to show that they had sickness insurance. If they are not able to provide it, they are told that they are not entitled to permanent residence. Many have received a refusal on that ground. These are the mothers of children, married to men here in Britain, living their lives here and having sent their children to school here. Many of them have been here for more than 20 years. We should understand the scandal that that creates.

I want to say to people who have been involved in any kind of business negotiation or legal negotiation that when you take a principled position at the beginning of a negotiation, it wins you so much good will. In communications we have received only today and yesterday, and from all those people in the European Union who are in contact with me as the chair of the sub-committee, people are saying to us, “Please pass the unilateral declaration amendment in the House of Lords”, because it is giving reassurance not just to those nationals there but to all of us in Europe who are fearful about the future and who feel that it will give strength to our arguments in relation to Governments such as the Spanish Government, the Portuguese Government and so on.

I urge your Lordships to accept that this is a matter of principle. This is about the honour of this House. This is about us speaking to what people need to put their fears and their anguish at bay. We have a real responsibility to those people, and in taking the responsibility for the ones whom we can make decisions about, we therefore take responsibility for our citizens living in other parts of the European Union.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Kennedy of Shaws and Lord Taylor of Holbeach

Monday 17th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, this has been a very thorough debate on a clause which, as the noble Lord said, we owe it to discuss thoroughly.

I start by adding some further perspective to the debate on the deprivation of citizenship. The measures in the Bill to deprive someone of citizenship can be used only against someone who has chosen, as an adult—not as a child—to naturalise as a British citizen. When choosing to seek British nationality they will have taken an oath, or sworn allegiance, to Her Majesty, and pledged their loyalty to this country. Despite this—

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

I know it is early in the Minister’s answer, but can I be clear: is he saying that this will not apply to persons who were naturalised when they were under 18?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

It will not apply to people under 18. Such people are not able to apply for naturalisation; they can gain British citizenship through registration—in effect, through their parents’ presence in this country. Rather, this amendment to the existing law applies to people who have sought naturalisation. As I say, they pledge their loyalty to this country. Despite this, a small number of these individuals have chosen by their conduct to betray the values and laws of their adopted country. Therefore, in my view, it is only right that the Home Secretary can, in seeking to protect the security of the UK, deprive them of that adopted citizenship, and expect them to reacquire, or to acquire, their former citizenship of another country.

I remind the Committee that the Government already have the powers to deprive citizenship. Such powers have been operated by successive Governments. Listening to the debate at certain times, I got the feeling that the argument was that no Government should have the power to deprive citizenship. However, the clear argument in these amendments is not on that case but on whether the exceptional case of statelessness should be an exclusion from the Government’s powers in this pre-existing legislation.

These powers have their origins in legislation dating back to the First World War, when provision was made for the revocation of citizenship if a naturalised person was suspected of treasonable activities. Section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981, which has been cited, allows the Home Secretary to deprive British citizenship in two scenarios. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, mentioned them. The first is where the person acquired it using fraud, false representations or concealment of a material fact, which essentially means that they used deception to obtain citizenship for which they were not eligible. In these cases a person may be left stateless. Are noble Lords arguing that they should not be deprived of citizenship in such cases?

The second scenario is where the Home Secretary,

“is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good”,

and that the person would not be left stateless as a result. It is the second of these powers that Clause 60 seeks to amend by returning our position on deprivation action to that which existed as recently as 2003. These powers are provided for and permitted under international law by virtue of the UK’s declaration to the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the domestic legislation that existed at that time. These powers are provided for and permitted under international law.