UK Citizenship

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to air this issue in the House this afternoon. Although the power to deprive British nationals of citizenship, amplified in clause 60 of the Immigration Bill, might seem to some a mere legal technicality, important issues lie behind it. Clause 60 is wrong-headed, and I hope that airing the issues this afternoon will lead people in another place to throw the clause out of the Bill.

The clause provides for the Secretary of State to render a person stateless by depriving him or her of their nationality where citizenship has been gained through naturalisation and where

“the Secretary of State is satisfied that the deprivation is conducive to the public good because the person, while having that citizenship status, has conducted him or herself in a manner which is seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom”.

First, I would remind the House that we are talking about terror suspects. Nowadays in Parliament, saying that someone is suspected of terrorist activity is enough for the political class to assume that that person does not deserve due process. It is worth reminding the House that those people have not actually been convicted of any crime. Sadly, I have to say, the currency of political debate about terrorism has been so debased, first under Tony Blair and now under the coalition, that alleged terrorists are now routinely deemed to be the only category of alleged criminal who are not allowed due process—even alleged paedophiles have to have due process, but not alleged terrorists.

My view is that if someone is suspected of terrorism, the obvious step is to put them on trial. I am supported in that view by no less a person than the late Lord Kingsland, the former Conservative shadow Lord Chancellor, who said in 2002:

“If we identify someone as a person proposing to commit a serious terrorist offence…surely the obligation is on us to deal with that person. If we simply deport him, we shall be handing on…this terrorist problem to another state which may not have the same capability of dealing with it…It cannot be a proper response to the terrorist threat to refuse to deal with it ourselves”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 October 2002; Vol. 639, c. 277-278.]

That was the view of the Conservative party in 2002, but clearly things have changed in the intervening time.

Being realistic, we know that the security services have always resisted trial for many suspected terrorists because—this is my understanding—they do not want to make public their wire-tapping and other surveillance methods. I have always found that argument dubious, and it is even less credible post the Snowden revelations, which have revealed to us all more about state surveillance than we ever wanted to know. Instead of due process, the security services and their political adherents in both parties prefer secret courts, detention without trial and now this attempt to strip away citizenship.

That leads me to one of the big problems with clause 60 of the Immigration Bill: it creates two different classes of British citizenship. There are those, such as myself, who are British citizens because we were born here, and there are those, including some of the people who work for me, who are British citizens by naturalisation. We will have two classes of British citizens. That is a dangerous road to go down. In support of that view I quote no less a person than the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who, as I think most people know, is a Conservative MP and not someone who could be described as a bleeding-heart liberal. On Report, when clause 60 was added to the Immigration Bill, he said:

“I am perhaps rather romantic in my view of what it means to be a British subject. I always thought that Palmerston got it right on the Don Pacifico affair—the ‘civis Romanus sum’ principle. Once any one of us has a passport that says we are British, we are as British as anybody else, whether they were born here or got their passport five minutes ago. It is incredibly important that there is equality before the law for all Her Majesty’s subjects who are living in this country and have right of residence here. I worry that if we give the Government the ability to take passports away from a certain category of British subject but not from others, it will create a potential unfairness and a second category of citizen.”—[Official Report, 30 January 2014; Vol. 574, c. 1086.]

That goes to the heart of one of the problems with the legislation.

We should not have, as it were, class A and class B British citizens. In communities such as mine, the fear will be that although this has started with suspected terrorists, where will it end, once the state decides that British citizenship is not indivisible? The Home Secretary has said, rather unfortunately, that citizenship is a privilege, not a right, but citizenship is not a privilege or a right; it is a fact. Deciding that it is not a fact and that the state can chop and change when it comes to the light in which it regards someone’s citizenship, is, I believe—as does the hon. Member for North East Somerset—a dangerous road to go down.

Another problem with the proposal is that in stripping a terrorism suspect of their nationality, there is a danger that we could render them stateless. That problem was raised on Report. The Secretary of State argued that

“we are talking about a situation in which they”—

that is, the person deprived of citizenship—

“would be able to acquire statehood from somewhere else.”—[Official Report, 30 January 2014; Vol. 574, c. 1040.]

However, even the most cursory glance at clause 60 reveals that the provision is not limited in that way, but allows individuals to be rendered stateless without reference to the possibility of securing citizenship elsewhere. The Home Secretary said:

“The whole point of the measure is to be able to remove certain people”.—[Official Report, 30 January 2014; Vol. 574, c. 1043.]

That assertion raises a number of important questions. I am interested to hear from the Minister how the Government will remove people who have no nationality and no travel documents.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. If another state were to remove citizenship from a naturalised citizen who was originally from the UK, does she envisage that it would be at all likely that our country would be enthusiastic about offering citizenship to that person? If we would not, why should we imagine that other countries would offer citizenship to someone who has had their citizenship revoked by this Government?

[Ms Abbott]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The Government want to be able to move on people whom they consider a threat to the state, but why should other countries accept someone who has been stripped of citizenship here in the UK?

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

May I directly address the suggestion that any action on deprivation of citizenship is linked, in any way, to the sort of activity that the hon. Lady highlighted? I strenuously deny that. They are two clearly separate issues and there is nothing to indicate, in any respect, that they are linked.

It is true that people have been deprived while outside the UK, but I do not accept that it is a particular tactic. It is simply an operational reality that in some cases the information comes to light when the person is outside the UK or that it is the final piece of the picture, confirming what has been suspected. In other cases, we may determine that the most appropriate response to the actions of an individual is to deprive that person while they are outside the UK. Equally, there are cases where it can be determined that it is appropriate to take action to deprive individuals while they are inside the UK.

It is not true that all those deprived under the clause will be stateless. Some may be able to acquire or reacquire another nationality. In those cases, where the individual has been deprived while in the UK, we would seek to remove that individual from the UK once they had acquired another nationality. However, the clause is not limited to those cases and can be applicable to those who cannot acquire another nationality. In that event, it is open to them to make an application to stay in the UK as a stateless person.

The UK would continue to comply with the provisions of the 1961 UN convention on the reduction of statelessness, regarding the rights of stateless persons. Where appropriate, we could regularise a person’s position in the UK by granting limited leave—possibly with conditions relating to access to public funds and their right to work and study.

I come back to the hon. Lady’s point about the concept, as she described it, of two-tier citizenship. We do not accept that there is, or will be, a two-tier citizenship system. The proposal merely reflects the fact that there are differing routes to citizenship, and therefore, different actions permissible depending on the actions of the person concerned. The power to deprive a person of citizenship, as I have explained, already exists and certain aspects can only be applied depending on a person’s route to citizenship. Naturalised or registered citizens can be deprived if they obtained it by means of fraud, false representation or concealment of a material fact. Any citizen can be deprived if the Secretary of State considers it conducive to the public good and the person would not be left stateless as a result, so I do not accept the hon. Lady’s suggestion.

I understand that Members are concerned about instances where deprivation action takes places when a person is outside the UK, and I hear the hon. Lady’s point. I restate that the Home Secretary takes deprivation action only when she considers it is appropriate and that may mean doing so when an individual is abroad, which prevents their return and reduces the risk to the UK. That individual would still have a full right of appeal and the ability to resolve their nationality issues accordingly. It is often the travel abroad to terrorist training camps or to countries with internal fighting that is the tipping point—the crucial piece of the jigsaw—that instigates the need to act.

[Duncan Hames]

The Minister refers to the right of appeal, and he outlined earlier the courts available for that process. Will he confirm that it would therefore, in some cases, be an appeal that is conducted under closed material proceedings?

[James Brokenshire]

As I indicated, a route is open to SIAC to consider that, and closed material proceedings could be applicable in certain circumstances—not automatically; it would depend on the nature of the individual case. It is appropriate, however, that there is that right of appeal and right of challenge, and SIAC effectively provides that ability to do so.

I reassure Members that the new power would apply only to those who are naturalised citizens—crucially, not children, who are not able to naturalise as British citizens, nor anyone who is British by birth or registration. That is because our original declaration reasonably limits action only to those who have sought the privilege of British citizenship but then betray the values and laws that they swore to maintain.

Ultimately, the new power will be used sparingly. It will be relevant only in a small subset of the most serious deprivation cases, where we are currently precluded from taking action because those people would be left stateless. Our proposed clause is a targeted and proportionate measure that protects the security of the UK without jeopardising our international obligations. It provides for effective rights of appeal and for upholding the 1961 UN convention on the reduction of statelessness.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington for bringing the matter to the Chamber this afternoon and for enabling me to set out more details on the proposals. As she has rightly identified, this matter is before the other place, and I am sure that it will give the issues careful scrutiny and consideration.