Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a founder member and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, a vice-chairman of the Chagos Islands All Party Parliamentary Group. Having once had the pleasure of meeting the Chagos Islanders based in Mauritius, I rise to strongly support this amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Horam, have explained, this issue is an international scandal for which the Government are entirely responsible.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I did not have the opportunity to speak at Second Reading and I apologise for that. I declare my interests in the register and want to clarify that I am speaking in a personal capacity, and I will keep my intervention very brief. I agree with every speech that has been made today, but I particularly want to reference some points made by the noble Lord, Lord Horam.

I gave a speech at the Mauritian Foreign Ministry in 2019 in advance of the United Kingdom’s court case. While my speech was wide-ranging about international affairs and Britain’s role in the world generally, I was astonished by the strength feeling that the people present, mainly civil servants working in the Foreign Office, had about this issue. They were not all affected by the Chagossians’ claims—some were, some were not—but there was a national sense of disbelief that a law-abiding, rules-abiding great power in the world was behaving in this shabby manner towards a very small number of people.

I want to pick up on one point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about the reason given by the Minister in the House of Commons as to why he would not support the amendment moved there. He said that it would overturn, and set a precedent over, years of British nationality law. My simple response to that is: the Government profess that we are increasingly bringing rights home, in terms of their assessment of the Human Rights Act and so on. But, as the noble Baroness knows very well, our courts are increasingly taking account of precedent with regard to Ministers’ intentions when they speak in both Houses of Parliament —and Parliament’s intentions when it decides to do whatever it decides to do.

So, if she has concerns similar to those expressed by the Minister in the House of Commons about setting precedent, all she would need to do when this Bill comes back to the Chamber on Report is to make it clear in her speech that she does not intend this Act—a humanitarian Act—to set a precedent in any other way. That is all she has do to reassure the House, and the courts will take account of that. I hope she will listen with great sympathy to the speeches on this matter across the House today, because that is what this small number of people deserve from us.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, as we have heard from my noble friend Lady Ludford, the Chagos Islanders were evicted by the UK Government in the late 1960s and early 1970s to make way for a US naval base, and they are still exiled from their homeland. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, there are two separate and very distinct issues here. The first, as the noble Lord quite rightly says, is giving the Chagos Islands back to the islanders, which is very much an issue for the Foreign Office. This amendment is about giving Chagos Islanders nationality, and that is very much the responsibility of the Home Office, not the Foreign Office. I would also say, in response to the last speaker and to the noble Lord, that century-long precedents are not necessarily good precedents.

One impact of the eviction has been to deprive descendants of their citizenship rights. The Chagos Islands remain a British Overseas Territory and, as we have heard, were it not for the eviction, they would have passed British Overseas Territories citizenship from generation to generation. In certain circumstances, they could have acquired entitlement to be registered as British citizens and, since 2002, they could have benefited from a general discretion from the Home Secretary to register as British citizens.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, said, the Government’s objection in the other place does not hold water. The situation of the Chagos Islanders is unique and, while the other measures in this part of the Bill to address historic injustices are welcome, they are incomplete without the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, which we wholeheartedly support. As the noble Baroness explained, it is narrow in scope, focused exclusively on the Chagos Islanders’ direct descendants and limited to a five-year window, either from the date the amendment comes into force or five years from when the eligible person turns 18. The Minister will have to do more than simply repeat the words of her colleague in the other place to convince noble Lords not to pursue this matter further on Report.