Immigration Bill

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and I should declare an interest because, like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I am a member of Blackstone Chambers, the same chambers as Professor Goodwin-Gill. As the House will understand, barristers are not like solicitors: we are not in a firm and are perfectly capable of taking completely different views from some of our colleagues. I have of course read Guy Goodwin-Gill’s opinion and his supplementary opinions but I do not think that they focus on the particular issues, practical and otherwise, with which we are concerned in this debate.

As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, indicated, the Joint Committee on Human Rights welcomes the concession that has been made. I was one of the rebels—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—and am personally satisfied, for the reasons that the noble Lord gave, that the concessions obtained in the other House ought to be acceptable and are in accordance both with international law and with the principles of our own constitutional system of government and law. However, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that the questions that he has raised are the right ones, and my support for the Government’s position is dependent on satisfactory assurances being given. It is very important that they are given, because one of the advantages of the Pepper v Hart doctrine is that what is said by the Minister in reply will give guidance about how this important provision is to be interpreted.

I very much welcome the shift that has occurred and the fact that it has occurred because of pressure from across the whole House and not simply from one party. I do not agree with the position now being taken by Her Majesty’s Opposition—unless it is a probing position. If they were to press their difference of opinion to a vote, I would support the Government.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, on Report, I added my name to those of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in proposing what is now Amendment 18. I did so because, consistently with what I had previously said in Committee, I was so strongly opposed to the United Kingdom lending itself to what has been called the evil of statelessness, with all the reputational damage which that would have occasioned to this country. It seemed to me at that stage imperative that there should be pre-legislative scrutiny, as Amendment 18 essentially proposes, before any such extreme position should be adopted.

On Report, I recognised that amending the legislation, short of leaving people stateless, could indeed well be justified. I will quote just a sentence from what I said at that point:

“By all means, let the Government reverse the decision last year of the Supreme Court in Al-Jedda and legislate, as Lord Wilson in his judgment there implicitly suggested, to allow us to deprive someone of their British citizenship, provided that they can then immediately acquire the nationality of another state, as, indeed, it was assumed in the course of the litigation in that case that Mr Al-Jedda himself could have done”.—[Official Report, 7/4/14; col. 1174.]

Noble Lords should remember that this power is to be available only in the case of someone who has gained his British citizenship by naturalisation and who then betrays the trust that we as a nation put in him and acts in a way which is seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of this country. Provided that that person can then become a national of another country so as not to be rendered stateless, as was assumed in Mr Al-Jedda’s case, I see no real objection to our depriving him of the protection that we ourselves earlier conferred upon him. The Government’s very welcome amendments seem to limit the power precisely to these circumstances. My understanding of the new paragraph that it is proposed be inserted into the nationality Act under Amendment 18A is that it is precisely the same as that of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I will not go into all the points again, but it is plain that it refers to a present entitlement and not simply to a right to apply. The language is “to become” a national of another country, not “to seek to become”. Provided that that is so and provided that the Minister gives—as I fully expect him to—all the assurances that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has invited him to give, the Government have properly given way on this critical issue and, if the matter is put to the vote, I shall support the Government.