Kuwait: Bidoon

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Avebury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the Government of Kuwait about granting citizenship to the stateless Bidoon who are resident in that country.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, the British embassy in Kuwait is in regular contact with the Kuwaiti Government to lobby on this important issue. The UK recognises that the situation of the Bidoon in Kuwait causes real human rights problems. We encourage the Kuwaiti Government to implement swiftly their plan to naturalise those individuals eligible for Kuwaiti nationality and regularise the situation for the remainder.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, I know that my noble friend is well aware of the fact that Kuwaiti Bidoon children are born stateless and go through the whole of their lives without access to education, health and public services of all kinds. Over the many years that the Government have been making representations on the subject, their representations have fallen on deaf ears. Will my noble friend, bearing in mind the close relationship between the royal families of our two countries and the recent world public appeal of the UNHCR to reduce statelessness, consider making a high-level appeal to the emir himself to grant citizenship to those 120,000 stateless people, and procure that the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs follows our example?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I would not seek to invite the Royal Family to take particular actions, but I am sure that everything that the noble Lord says in this Chamber has due regard paid to it in these matters. He is right to refer to the UNHCR. The UK is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, but Kuwait is not. We encourage all countries to sign the convention.

I should remind my noble friend, and therefore the House, that the 105,000 estimated Bidoon who seek nationality are not all in the same category. Of those, about 34,000 were in Kuwait before independence in 1961 but did not register for citizenship. The remaining number have come to Kuwait after that date from other countries. Some of them went there to work; some were illegal immigrants. Therefore, their position is very different from those who, with their descendants, seek full citizenship.