Citizenship (Armed Forces) Bill

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Friday 13th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Lord]

The key point is that the Bill would remedy a simple problem. I know, from having talked to the Minister, that the planned nationality Bill will have specific needs in mind, and he would not necessarily wish to take on board this aspect of immigration issues in case it perhaps encouraged more mischievous amendments and additions.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the Bill, as it covers an issue that we should clearly pursue under the armed forces covenant. Does he have any information about support from the various Army charities for this proposal?

[Jonathan Lord]

I am pleased to say that most of the major Army charities, which do such wonderful work supporting our service personnel, our ex-service personnel and their families, are very supportive of the Bill. Like other hon. Members, I attend Remembrance day services and rattle tins for the Royal British Legion—the local branches in Woking and other areas of Surrey are hugely supportive of the Bill.

Veterans Aid, an important charity in this area, has said of the Bill:

“We warmly welcome any initiative that removes obstacles to those who have served this country with honour from settling here legally and have campaigned on this issue. Veterans Aid, more than any other military charity, has championed the cause of Foreign & Commonwealth servicemen and women disadvantaged, through no fault of their own, by bureaucracy that is demonstrably at odds with the spirit of the Military Covenant. This was an injustice and we applaud the Government and Jonathan Lord for listening. We still have many cases in being but this will definitely help us move things forward for quite a few of our clients.”

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[Jonathan Lord]

I have a large amount of notes relating to the naturalisation process and all the disqualifications that could block the path to British citizenship of a member of the armed forces. Factors such as dishonourable discharge and criminality could lead to disqualification, along with all the other kinds of things that one would expect a potential citizen of this country to be judged on, whether they were a soldier or a civilian.

[Guy Opperman]

The key point is that time spent overseas has placed people at a disadvantage. The new legislation could well apply to some of those at the barracks at Albemarle in Northumberland. The regiment that is now stationed there is moving to another part of the country, and a new regiment is coming in from Germany. Some members of that regiment could be covered by the Bill. The time that they have spent overseas is the key factor.

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[Jonathan Lord]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, with which I of course agree absolutely. For those families affected—my hon. Friend is absolutely right that 200 is a realistic estimate—this Bill will make all the difference in the world. While we in this mother of Parliaments are incredibly proud to serve our constituents, the reason many people want to serve in our armed forces is that they know that this country has, over many years, served the cause of decency, democracy and the rule of law. If they are willing to put their lives on the line for this country and all that it stands for, I am sure that they would be equally proud, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) said, of the day on which they and their families took British citizenship.

[Guy Opperman]

Following what my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) said, does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just a matter of the families? Most of the soldiers I meet and talk to in the barracks in my constituency say that their true loyalty is not just to their family, but to the regiment and their battalion. I suggest that from the Army point of view, this is about not just the individual soldier and his family, but about the corps of the battalion and an individual soldier who is not a British citizen feeling part of the unit. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Jonathan Lord]

Yes, absolutely. The regiment, the battalion and the way in which our armed forces tend to be arranged into smaller units, many of which have a distinguished history behind them and a wonderful record of service ahead of them, are all very important. That should make us reflect on how the relevant armed service personnel must think when they fill out a form and find out that they are disadvantaged because they were posted abroad five years ago in the service of their regiment or battalion. The whole ethos of this country, the battalion, the regiment and unit goes out of the window the moment these people put pen to paper on that form and realise that, by a quirk of bureaucracy and a small defect in the British Nationality Act 1981, they are at a disadvantage by comparison with other service personnel who served here or, indeed, any other ordinary citizens with a foreign or Commonwealth background who are able to go through the process of naturalisation and citizenship. What a terrible shock that must be for those people and their families.

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[Jonathan Lord]

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that they would indeed be included, and I am grateful to her for raising that point.

It cannot be fair that a regular civilian or a solider who has been based in the UK can successfully apply for residency but a soldier who was serving in Afghanistan, or a member of the Royal Air Force or the Royal Navy who was posted overseas five years before his or her application, cannot successfully apply for residency. Every day that members of the services have spent abroad should have the same value in the eyes of the immigration authorities as a day spent in the UK.

[Guy Opperman]

Is this not all part of what the armed forces covenant is about? It is about a situation existing for servicemen and women in which they are not treated differently from ordinary citizens in this country.

[Jonathan Lord]

That is the clear thrust of the Bill and the debate today. I hope that all Members listening will take that point on board and come to the ineluctable conclusion that what the Bill proposes is only fair.

In answer to a question asked earlier, the main nationalities that are likely to benefit from this measure will be Fijian, Jamaican, South African, Zimbabwean and Ghanaian, since they are the main foreign and Commonwealth nationals represented in Her Majesty’s armed forces. I am pleased to say that, in addition, Nepalese nationals who have served in the Brigade of Gurkhas will also benefit. Although Gurkhas are required to remain citizens of Nepal while serving in the Brigade of Gurkhas, those seeking naturalisation following discharge will fall within the scope of the new provision. I hope that in addition to the military and veterans’ charities that I have mentioned, that national icon, Joanna Lumley, will also look favourably on the Bill, and on the House if it decides to pass it.

The measures in the Bill will correct an unfairness that Parliament committed to resolve when it enshrined the armed forces covenant in law. I hope that, with the approval of Members, the Bill will send out a further signal to those servicemen and women who hold a UK passport, and to those who do not, that the public and their representatives in this House are on their side and working to ensure that they are treated with the respect and dignity that their hard work, dedication and sacrifices deserve. I commend the Bill to the House.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

The short answer is that I do not know, but the Minister is sitting here, and no doubt he does know. What I will say is that although the private Member’s Bill procedure is often criticised, private Members' Bills are in fact scrutinised much more closely than Government Bills. The British Nationality Act was a large and important measure, but I am not a great believer in the conspiracy theory of history. I do not think that anyone in the Home Office wanted to disadvantage the armed forces. I am a believer in the cock-up theory of history, and if my hon. Friend wants my honest opinion, I think that that anomaly was simply a cock-up. Now it is being righted. That is what this procedure is all about.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Woking said, it is not right that the applications of people who put their lives on the line should be refused when the very reason for their absence is that we, the British Government—we, the British people—sent them overseas to protect our country. Why the anomaly arose I do not know, but it seems absurd to me, and that is why I think that the Bill, although narrow, is important.

The Minister has said:

“Making this change was a priority commitment under the Armed Forces Covenant. I am delighted to support this Bill which will ensure service men and women are not disadvantaged.”

So the Minister is on side. As has been mentioned, Veterans Aid is also on side, and put it very well when it said:

“Veterans Aid, more than any other military charity, has championed the cause of Foreign and Commonwealth servicemen and women, disadvantaged, through no fault of their own, by bureaucracy that is demonstrably at odds with the Military Covenant.”

The Army Families Federation has said:

“This legislation will make a big difference to the many soldiers and their spouses who are currently prohibited from applying for Citizenship because they were serving overseas or were on operations at the start the 5-year residential period.”

So this is clearly an important Bill, and it is clearly widely supported.

This Second Reading debate offers us an opportunity to try to tease out more information from the Minister about exactly how many people will be affected, how much further we can go in terms of the military covenant, and how we can improve morale and recruitment. A considerable number of people will potentially be involved. As of 1 April last year, 8,510 of the 166,110 members of the trained UK regular forces were non-British, constituting approximately 5.1% of our nation’s armed forces. That is quite a lot. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether he thinks that it is the right number, and what is the Government’s policy on recruitment.

I am not sure that I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who intimated earlier that perhaps there were too many foreign nationals serving in our forces. The Minister, who is far more knowledgeable than me, will be able to confirm or correct that, but I suspect that the 5.1% figure is fairly constant. It seems a reasonably healthy percentage, but one would not want it to rise too far. It is important, particularly in times of economic difficulty and high unemployment, for our armed forces to consist overwhelmingly of British citizens.

Of those 8,510 forces, about 520 were Nepalese, and nearly 8,000 were citizens of the Republic of Ireland or Commonwealth countries. About 4.5% of the armed forces intake at the end of 2011 consisted of black and ethnic minority personnel. I may be wrong about this, but according to my research, there are currently no statistics stating how many non-British members of the UK regular forces currently desire to gain British citizenship. I suspect that the number is relatively low. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking mentioned a figure, but I do not know where he found it. Even if the number who will be affected is only in the low hundreds, I do not think that that necessarily means that the Bill is unimportant. It is the principle, rather than the number involved, that is important.

[Guy Opperman]

Is there not a distinction between the total number of overseas personnel in the armed forces and the number who are affected by the anomaly of the five-year rule, which by any standard is a much smaller number?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course. That is an obvious point.

I should like to hear a bit more from the Minister about the armed forces covenant. The covenant states that the Government’s aspiration is that no armed forces personnel be disadvantaged in “dealings with wider society”. Those are the Government’s words, and I think that they are rather vague, but they could extend to applications for British citizenship. Clearly, what we are doing today is entirely in accord with the covenant. Although the issue with which we are dealing is important, it covers quite a small area. What do the Government mean when they say that armed forces personnel should not be disadvantaged in “dealings with wider society”?

The covenant also refers to the Government aim of removing any social or economic inequalities between them and other citizens. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether there are any other bureaucratic anomalies in regard to either recruitment or citizenship which still need to be addressed under the armed forces covenant. I suspect that what we are doing today will not be enough for the Veterans Association. It will be happy with it—indeed, it has already welcomed the Bill—but it will, quite rightly, ask for more.

What is the Government’s aim? What obstacles do they feel that they should remove in order to get rid of any inequalities between our armed forces and other citizens? I also wonder whether the aim of the Bill is undermined by the fact that the families of members of the armed forces would have to apply for naturalisation via the normal and potentially lengthy methods. I have tried to study that, and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch asked a good question about it earlier. We want to know how far this will extend. What exactly are we talking about, therefore?

Mention was made of cleaners. Those who clean also serve their country. Families are very important, too. My point is that the armed forces community is just as important as armed forces personnel. Does this anomaly not ignore the Government’s commitments in the covenant to the armed forces community, rather than simply to armed forces personnel? The Minister has many questions to answer, but he is a very capable Minister so I am sure he will address them comprehensively.

The levels of support available in the covenant to the families of armed forces personnel extend to

“positive measures to prevent disadvantage.”

What exactly does that mean? What further proposals will the Government make? As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) said, our armed forces are paid well but not over-paid and their accommodation is good but in some cases it is not over-good, and there are many other areas where our armed forces feel they are disadvantaged.

Families of non-British service personnel can be based overseas, potentially causing problems in their desire for UK citizenship. The Gurkhas, for instance, have bases in Nepal and Brunei. There are, however, already institutions such as the Gurkha settlement office which provide positive support for individuals wishing to apply for a visa or indefinite leave to remain in the UK. The existence of those institutions could be interpreted as fulfilling the Government’s commitment to minimise the impacts of such irritants on military life, but I suspect there are many irritants for our armed forces personnel which the Government still need to address. The measures we are addressing this morning are only a very small part of that.

[Guy Opperman]

I appreciate entirely the point my hon. Friend is making, but the implementation of the armed forces covenant is an ongoing process addressing many different aspects. The armed forces covenant annual report, a copy of which I am holding, is some hundred pages long and addresses a multitude of different issues, of which this is, I accept, a solitary one. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a process of slow, incremental progress on a number of issues?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course. We all know that the task facing the Minister is extremely difficult and it is better to make a small step than no step at all, but I think the question still needs to be asked. What we are talking about today is just getting rid of one very small little irritant. You are the expert on order, Mr Speaker, and I am not an expert on it, but it seems to me that this Second Reading debate gives us an opportunity to get more out of the Government on how they are trying to increase recruitment and other interesting issues. On other days, there is often not time to get adequate answers.

Let us talk about the British Nationality Act 1981.

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[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) on introducing this excellent private Member’s Bill. I am delighted to be here to speak in support of it, just as he was kind enough to be here to support my private Member’s Bill. The Minister, who is my neighbour, as he represents Forest of Dean, was also in the Chamber that day. Since then, he has been promoted to his current role, so I hope that the fact he is sitting on the Front Bench today augurs well for the Bill.

The Bill is an extremely worthwhile piece of legislation, but, as we were just hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), it is incredibly important that we scrutinise these pieces of legislation in great detail. Although the Bill appears short, containing few clauses, my scrutiny of it has found that it raises many questions in this important area, on which I seek the Minister’s clarification. I wish to ask him about the time an individual is required to spend, and where they are required to spend it, before the process of naturalisation can begin. I want to explore the Secretary of State’s discretion in these matters, which is clearly outlined in the Bill, and to ask the Minister further questions about the territorial extent clause. I also want to clarify whether the naturalisation provisions added to our general citizenship legislation since the 1981 Act—specifically the requirement to pass a citizenship test and how the test has been changed—would continue to apply in this case. Given that this is a Second Reading debate, I hope that you will regard all those areas of questioning as in order, Mr Speaker.

As I understand it, the provisions on timing relate only to the starting point of the application for naturalisation. As things stand at the moment, the individual making the application needs to be in the United Kingdom at the point at which the clock starts ticking for the five-year period. I would like that clarified.

I also want clarification on the territorial extent of the Bill. My interpretation is that clause 2(3) would extend the Bill to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which all seems very logical, but also to the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the British overseas territories. It is on the British overseas territories that my questions begin to multiply. It is worth putting it in Hansard that they are Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Antarctic Territory, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands and its dependencies, Gibraltar of course, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, St Helena and its dependencies, the sovereign base areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the British Virgin Islands.

[Guy Opperman]

On the 300th anniversary of the treaty of Utrecht, my hon. Friend has mentioned Gibraltar. She may recall that it was taken under British command, but with the aid of Dutch and Austrian troops.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The question is whether those troops settled in Gibraltar and what the rules were for their naturalisation as British citizens prior to 1981. I can honestly say that I do not have the faintest clue, but that is an interesting historical point.

I was evacuated to the British sovereign base of Dhekelia as a child when, as a British citizen, I was growing up in Cyprus. We were living in Nicosia at the time, and we were often under threat of invasion by Turkish forces. I remember being evacuated to Dhekelia, and feeling incredibly safe and secure there, on British sovereign territory. My father, however, had to remain behind in Nicosia to do his job. He put a Union flag on the roof of our house, and we sincerely hoped that the Turkish air force would be able to spot it from the air should it decide to bomb Nicosia. However, I digress, Mr Speaker.

I am trying to find out how my hypothetical examples would be affected by the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking told us that the provision would probably apply to a citizen of Fiji. Let us imagine that that citizen of Fiji joins Her Majesty’s armed forces, does exemplary service and decides—I do not know what the residence requirements would be—that he or she wants to remain in the British Indian Ocean Territory. Does the territorial extent of the Bill mean that the first date of the five-year period includes residence in one of the territories I have listed? That is my interpretation.

In relation to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, a situation might arise in which, as we heard, a Jamaican citizen who joined our armed forces abroad and served with great courage with them in other parts of the world decides to settle in Gibraltar, or perhaps closer to Jamaica, in the Cayman Islands. From there, could that person apply for naturalisation as a British citizen, without ever having resided in what we might more naturally think of as the United Kingdom? I particularly want clarification on that point. I understand that the 1981 Act requires people to spend five years resident in the UK, but does the territorial extent in the Bill define the UK more widely? I look forward to hearing from the Minister about that.

The first residence requirement in the 1981 Act is that applicants must have been resident in the UK for at least five years, and I am again interested in the Minister clarifying the territorial extent of the United Kingdom in that regard. The second requirement is that they must have been present in the United Kingdom five years before the date of application, which is the provision that we are tackling; the third is that they are free of immigration time restrictions on the date of application; and the fourth is that they are free of immigration restrictions for a period of 12 months before making the application. Will that remain in force when the Bill is passed?

The fifth requirement is that the applicants have not spent more than 450 days outside the United Kingdom during the five-year period. I understand that that is covered by the Secretary of State’s discretion with regards to serving members of the armed forces. The sixth is that they have not spent more than 90 days outside the United Kingdom in the last 12 months of the five-year period. The final requirement is that they have not been in breach of the immigration rules at any stage during the five-year period. Can the Minister confirm that all those aspects of the residency requirements in the 1981 Act will continue to apply, and that the Bill will change only one particular area?

Since the 1981 Act, there has been one major modification to what it takes for someone to be naturalised as a citizen of the United Kingdom. I refer, of course, to the UK citizenship test. I do not know whether you have ever had the chance to see whether you can pass it, Mr Speaker, but in preparation for this debate, I thought that I would see whether I could do so. I looked at some sample tests, and I regret to inform the House that in the first sample test I failed to reach the necessary 75% required to pass.

Let me give some examples of questions that I did not answer successfully. I will not put you on the spot, Mr Speaker, although I know you are an encyclopaedically knowledgeable man. The following question stumped me: in which year did married women get the right to divorce their husband? To help the applicant there are four possible answers, and I am happy to take an intervention from anyone who can answer the question correctly. The options are 1837, 1857, 1875 or 1882. I do not know the correct answer, but I know I got it wrong. I am glad to say that I did know that it is not the Prime Minister who calls a by-election and that we have two Chambers in our national Parliament, so I sailed through some of the questions.

Here is another question that I failed miserably to pass: what is the number of children and young people up to the age of 19 in the UK? Again, Mr Speaker, I will help you out, but I will not put you on the spot. I will take interventions from colleagues who know the answer. The four possible answers are 13 million, 14 million, 15 million and 16 million. I failed on that one and I can see that the House has also failed on that measure of citizenship. I was getting rather depressed with my results from the test until I discovered a crucial fact. I compliment my hon. Friend the Minister on any involvement that he may have had in this crucial fact, which is that this Government have now introduced a much more sensible citizenship test. Those examples were taken from the citizenship test that can only be described as a new Labour fantasy about the level of knowledge that we would all have about our country.

I will not go on with further examples of questions that I failed—

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[Harriett Baldwin]

Mr Speaker, I shall have that speech of yours printed and engraved. It is so eloquent that I can only—

[Guy Opperman]

May I draw my hon. Friend back to the Bill? Surely the point is that this country, whose virtues she is extolling, has a long history of support by overseas troops and forces to win key battles. Waterloo would not have been won without the Prussians, Wellington famously crying, “Where is Blucher?” I presume General Blucher could have applied, were he willing to change from Prussian to British, to become a British citizen.

[Harriett Baldwin]

My understanding is that he would have had to have been resident in the territories outlined in the Bill for a considerable period of time before applying.

I will bring to a conclusion this line of discussion, but I am pleased to report to the House—you will forgive me, Mr Speaker—that I was able to get 100% on the new citizenship test. I expect that all the people who go through the process will, as a result of these changes, be able to demonstrate not just the narrow technical points that we define on a page in legislation, such as the number of days, but the wider cultural and historical aspects of what it means to be a British citizen.

My next line of questions for the Minister relates to the Secretary of State’s discretion, which I understand is a crucial part of the legislation. That discretion is vital because someone serving in our armed forces might get into trouble with the law, either civilian or military, and might—I am sure that the numbers are very low—have to go through the ignominy of a dishonourable discharge. If a member of the armed forces has been dishonourably discharged, would that almost invariably mean that they would not meet the new criteria for applying for naturalisation? Perhaps the Minister will confirm that from the Dispatch Box.

That former member of the armed forces might have lived a blameless life for many years since, their dishonourable discharge having been some time in the past, so to what extent will the Secretary of State’s discretion be used in that example? Would it be the case that, however much time had elapsed and however honourable the person’s life had been since, the fact that they had been dishonourably discharged would be sufficient to count against their application for naturalisation?

Will the Minister, when he responds, clarify exactly how the Secretary of State’s discretion might be used in other situations? What other aspects of that discretion might be required? For example, if the person had had a magnificent period of service, left the armed forces, lived in one of the overseas dependencies I listed earlier and was then perhaps convicted of rape or murder, would that be something the Secretary of State would see automatically as a red line? My understanding is that it would, because being of good character is a requirement.

The other area of discretion I would like clarified relates to the requirement to be able to communicate to an acceptable degree in English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic. Someone might have exemplary military service and fulfil all the conditions, and they might be one of the people who will be helped by the Bill, because at the beginning of their process of naturalisation they were on active service overseas, but perhaps their command of English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic is not quite at an acceptable level. To what extent will the Secretary of State be able to use his or her discretion in those circumstances? It is a question of how discretion will be used to define good character. Similarly, how will discretion be used to define the ability to communicate in English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic?

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[Guy Opperman]

I endorse entirely my hon. Friend’s comments, but I would go one step further. Although there may be an unwritten contract between the public and the armed forces, the Government have brought in the armed forces covenant and will provide updated reports on its progress and changes to it. Not only do the public have the unwritten contract but we, the public and the state now have the covenant between ourselves and our armed forces.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that extremely important point. We have the annual report on the armed forces covenant. The Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking addresses one key omission in the last annual report, namely the qualification or otherwise for naturalisation based on where a person happens to be five years prior to making their application.

Some have argued that that is a relatively narrow and small point, but it is a large and significant one, particularly now that it has gained huge public notice as a consequence of my hon. Friend’s Bill. Many of the military charities, including the Royal British Legion, have demonstrably shown support for it. It is therefore important that we give the Bill every possible support as it passes through both Houses.

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[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

The Bill is about two of the most important issues that we in the House of Commons debate—namely, the armed forces and immigration. Most of all, however, it is about justice and fairness, and that is surely what the armed forces covenant is all about. The covenant is not just a piece of paper; it is a priority for the Government. It is about fair treatment for our forces and about having an impact on the lives of the military personnel who serve in our communities. Its remit goes wider than that, however; it is about justice. The armed forces covenant is about an obligation on the whole of society. It involves voluntary, charitable and other bodies, as well as private organisations and it is about how all of us as individuals treat those who put their lives on the line for us. We all need to recognise that fact and to engage with it, so that we can implement the crucial elements of the covenant.

I urge those who are in any doubt about the process that the Government have entered into to study the covenant itself and to work their way through its history. The covenant was established in May 2011, and it was based on the principles of removing disadvantage from serving personnel in relation to access to public and commercial services, and of allowing special provision in some circumstances for the injured and the bereaved. The Government committed to rebuilding the covenant and established an armed forces covenant taskforce in July 2010. The taskforce reported to the Government, and many of its recommendations have subsequently been implemented. It produced two reports. The size of the second report—the “Armed forces covenant annual report 2012”, which runs to almost 100 pages—is testimony to the seriousness with which the Government are addressing these issues. It contains details of the specific measures that we are taking.

Significant achievements are to be found in many discrete areas of the covenant. Health care, for example, is a matter of prime importance for service personnel. Investment has been made in areas such as medical equipment in theatre and mental health care provision. Many of us have spoken in the House about the importance of providing support for our servicemen and women after they have been discharged from the Army, or when they are merely returning home on leave. I urge Members to visit Headley Court, the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, which was opened with £17 million of assistance from the Government. A further £5 million is going towards wards and accommodation. Thanks to the armed forces covenant, there have also been developments in housing. Members of the armed forces are now being placed at the top of the priority list on the Government’s First Buy scheme.

The armed forces covenant is why we are here today. The anomaly that the Bill seeks to address is that a serviceman or woman who serves overseas for a considerable length of time does not satisfy the requirements for naturalisation in the way that others are able to do.

This has great relevance to my own constituency because I have the privilege of having Albemarle barracks in my Northumberland constituency. For many years, the troops based there have been the 39th Regiment the Royal Artillery. By reason of the basing review, they are moving down to Wiltshire. We shall therefore be welcoming in the near future the 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery. Let me explain the relevance of this to the Bill.

The 3rd Regiment RHA has been based at Caen barracks in Hohne, Germany. Many soldiers have spent a considerable period of time there—overseas. I do not know the exact number of individuals, but if that regiment has overseas servicemen working there who, by reason of the British Nationality Act 1981, do not qualify for citizenship, they would be exactly the sort of individuals who would benefit from the fact that this Government are addressing this particular anomaly.

I speak as a fifth generation immigrant—one with a lot more “Saxon” than “Anglo” in my name. It is certainly the case that anyone coming from 3rd Regiment RHA should be able to benefit when, as we all hope, the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord), who has done great job bringing it before us, becomes law. I endorse entirely the support that various charities and Army organisations have expressed for the Bill and I welcome the fact that the Government have consulted them and got them involved. Like many others, I am a huge supporter of the Royal British Legion. I have raised funds for my local branch and it does a fantastic job. In addition, I welcome the fact that organisations such as Veterans Aid and the Army Families Federation have got involved and strongly supported my hon. Friend’s Bill.

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for the Bill. Is it not just as significant that, as far as we are aware, no organisations are hostile to the Bill, just as all the military charities are in favour of it?

[Guy Opperman]

That is the case. We need to recognise that there is a rich tradition of this country working with overseas soldiers in pursuit of the aims and objectives of the Queen and this country. One needs to think only of the battle of Britain. The Spitfire was not manned to the greatest degree by Anglo-Saxon men and women, as there were 145 pilots from Poland, 135 from New Zealand, 112 from Canada and 88 from Czechoslovakia; 41 were Irish and there were 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 11 Americans and one each from Sri Lanka, Jamaica and Zimbabwe. An interesting point that dovetails with our consideration of this Bill is that Jamaica will be particularly affected because its citizens continue to support and serve in our armed services to this day.

We appreciate the fact that the Bill is amending just one small part of the armed forces covenant, but it is certainly something that we should all support. As I reflect on the fact that there appears to be no opposition to the Bill and full support for it from a whole range of organisations, it makes me glad to be participating in private Members’ Bill proceedings for what I believe is the third time—I have a rich history over three years and three months with the Mobile Homes Bill and the Antarctic Bill, both of which I am pleased to say became law. I am very pleased to support my hon. Friend the Member for Woking on his Bill; he has done a fantastic job.