Edward Leigh
Main Page: Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough)Department Debates - View all Edward Leigh's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point. There are reports today that one of the lawyers who is representing one of the foreign fighters described British law as akin to Nazism. If that is true, these are absolutely outrageous comments. They will be found to be deeply offensive, for example, by holocaust survivors and their families here in Britain and elsewhere, and if this lawyer has an ounce of dignity, they should consider apologising for these wholly insensitive remarks.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
We would not want to fall foul of the European Court of Human Rights, would we? However, as a member of the Council of Europe, I refer the Home Secretary to recent judgments of the Council and the Court that one cannot deprive somebody of citizenship in an arbitrary way. Without asking him to comment on any individual cases, surely as a matter of law, it would not be arbitrary to strip someone of a passport if they willingly go out to join the jurisdiction of a terrorist organisation that has beheaded people, and all the rest, so I urge the Home Secretary to be robust on this matter. He will have the support not only of the whole country, but even of human rights lawyers.
Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend has raised an important issue, within which there are two separate issues. One is removing someone’s British passport, which is not necessarily the same as removing their citizenship. It is possible—I have done this on a number of occasions, as have my predecessors—to remove someone’s passport using the royal prerogative if that is deemed in the public interest. Separate to that but related, is, under some circumstances, depriving someone of their British citizenship—I mentioned this earlier at the Dispatch Box. In all cases, none of that can be done—of course it cannot—in an arbitrary way. There is a due process to be followed, but if either of those things are necessary to protect the public, that is exactly what I would do.