Kuwait: Bidoon

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I would not seek to invite the Royal Family to take particular actions, but I am sure that everything that the noble Lord says in this Chamber has due regard paid to it in these matters. He is right to refer to the UNHCR. The UK is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, but Kuwait is not. We encourage all countries to sign the convention.

I should remind my noble friend, and therefore the House, that the 105,000 estimated Bidoon who seek nationality are not all in the same category. Of those, about 34,000 were in Kuwait before independence in 1961 but did not register for citizenship. The remaining number have come to Kuwait after that date from other countries. Some of them went there to work; some were illegal immigrants. Therefore, their position is very different from those who, with their descendants, seek full citizenship.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

Can the Minister give us some idea of what she described as the remainder, those who will not qualify for naturalisation? Their plight is surely the most serious.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the estimate is that there are 105,000 Bidoon people—or people who claim to be Bidoon, as I should more accurately reflect the position—of whom 34,000 can be identified as being either those who were in Kuwait prior to June 1961 or descendants of those families, so there is some evidential link. Therefore, a substantial number of people would like to obtain citizenship. The Kuwaiti Government have created a system whereby the position is being reviewed for all those people, and those who qualify for full citizenship will do so. The remainder may be considered to have a regularised position, which means that they will be linked to the countries from which they came, if they have an evidential link, and could have a residential status in Kuwait, just not full citizenship.