Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

My Lords, this is a small but very important Bill. Most of the important issues it raises have already been spoken to by noble Lords, but some of them bear repetition.

To my mind, this is yet another Bill that, depressingly, seeks to make indents in our constitutional, judicial and democratic rights. The Bill, as we have heard, overturns the presumption that court orders take immediate effect. Clause 1 gives the Government of the day the power to overrule the court’s decisions by ignoring court rulings that have found the Government’s actions to be unlawful.

In brief, the Bill will deny citizenship to individual cases which the courts have already ruled eligible for further appeal. This denial persists until the last of all possible appeals have been exhausted, and as again we have heard, in some cases this may amount to years. Individuals awaiting appeal, and especially their children, are vulnerable, in that, in whatever conditions they find themselves, they are precluded from consular or any other protections.

In effect, this clause renders individuals stateless, and their children open to all kinds of other abuse, including forcible recruitment to armed militias from the age of 12, and/or to compulsory training camps, as happens in northern Syria. UK citizens in northern Syrian camps, for example, have already languished awaiting a court decision, and in some cases face life-threatening conditions. The Bill, given its retrospective mandate, will add years to their detention and render their children, some as yet unborn, vulnerable for years to come.

The purpose and the outcome of the Bill, to quote from a recent Reprieve briefing, is

“to prevent individuals from exercising their rights as British citizens even after the courts have ruled their deprivation unlawful, purely to maintain the Home Secretary’s unchecked ability to exclude them from the UK—however grave the abuses to which they risk being exposed”.

As we know, again, there was an attempt in the other place to introduce an amendment by Kit Malthouse, which proposed, among other elements, that a judge would be able to determine that an order had no effect during the appeal period if the individual faced a substantial threat of harm due to the order. This might be because such an order would adversely affect their ability, for example, to mount an effective defence, and/or the duration of the appeal period was excessive due, perhaps, to actions or omissions by public authorities.

Current levels of deprivation of citizenship in the UK are already very high and— again depressingly—disproportionately affect those from ethnic communities. The Home Secretary’s authority is considerable, in being able to issue an order to deprive a person of his or her citizenship on the basis simply that a person’s presence as a citizen is not conducive to the public good. There is no requirement, as far as I can tell, for judicial oversight, nor is the targeted individual necessarily informed of such a decision. Challenge at this stage is virtually impossible, as decisions are made under secret proceedings. Moreover, the current appeals system is lengthy, complicated and expensive, and certainly not easily accessed by those outside the UK.

This Bill is unnecessary. I hope very much that the relevant clauses will be challenged in Committee to ensure a more equitable, democratic and transparent procedure.