Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Lord Moylan

Committee stage
Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Before my noble friend turns to that amendment, I am of course not a lawyer but really quite a simple soul, who is struggling to catch up in some ways with the things he has explained to us. But it seems—forgive me if I have grasped this entirely wrongly—that we are now talking about two quite separate Bills. In one Bill, if your pestilential foot is set upon English soil the Home Secretary, as the Secretary of State, has a duty to remove you forthwith. That duty having been satisfied, the question might arise in your mind: are you in fact entitled to registration as a British national on the facts of your case? I fully accept that a degree of discretion is always involved in judging these facts, because they will rarely be compelling either way. You would be doing this, presumably, from your new home in Rwanda or whatever country it is to which you have been safely deported.

On the other hand, the Bill my noble friend is describing is one through which these people will, having landed illegally, already have acquired some sort of settlement here—the Home Secretary, presumably, having failed entirely in the duty that we are imposing on her to remove them. They will be exploiting the advantages of that settlement and clocking up hours on the clock, qualifying increasingly for British nationality, which my noble friend thinks—I rather agree with him—is a little unfair because you are getting ahead of the queue by getting in illegally. Then the clock is running and you would be accumulating all the benefits. Which Bill are we discussing here? The Bill I thought I was discussing was one through which the vast majority of the people who would be making a claim for registration of British nationality, with very few exceptions, would already have been subject to the duty to remove. How many does my noble friend think will not have been subject to it?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that contribution. The position, as he outlined in his speech, is that the deterrence effect takes its force from a number of sections in the Bill: the first, obviously, being the detention and removal, as he rightly identified; the second being the bans on the ability to settle or stay here, the idea being that that disincentivises people from entering illegally using dangerous routes. I do not accept that there are two Bills in the way that my noble friend identifies. The reality is that the question of registration of citizenship, which he raises, is unlikely to arise in as many cases as the naturalisation circumstance—I think we can agree on that—so it is natural that what we are talking about is probably an exceptional state of affairs, in any event. That is potentially why my noble friend perceives a dissonance between the deterrent effect and the two factors, but in fact there is no such distinction.

Amendments 98ZA and 98EA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, seek to expand the circumstances in which the bans on settlement and citizenship are to be disapplied. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, also touched on this issue. We consider that the circumstances in which a grant of settlement or citizenship would be an appropriate remedy are wholly covered by the ECHR, so our view is that the addition of other international agreements is unnecessary, hence the amendment, as we have already canvassed.

I turn now to Amendment 98I tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. This seeks to provide a broader protection for those holding British national (overseas) status. We do not believe this is necessary. The clauses which prevent people from obtaining various forms of British nationality already do not mention British national (overseas) status. This is for the simple reason that no one has been able to obtain that status since 1997 and, consequently, there is no need to ban people from obtaining it should they arrive illegally.

We already have in place a dedicated migration route for people from Hong Kong and, as the noble Baroness knows, it has been a significant priority for the Government and the department to offer this route to British national (overseas) people from Hong Kong in response to the situation there. We have done a great deal for the citizens of Hong Kong and hope to continue to do so. As cited in my response to my noble friend, Lord Moylan, a route to citizenship exists under Section 4(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981. There should therefore be no reason for a person holding British national (overseas) status to arrive illegally in the manner which would mean they fall under this Bill’s provisions.