Immigration Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Lords Chamber

As we have been told, there are probably going to be only a handful of people affected by these provisions, but what is far worse even than the effects on those few individuals and their families is the appalling example we are setting to the rest of the world. Britain was in the forefront in promoting the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and has since worked to reduce the pockets of statelessness that still exist all over the world, such as the Bidoon in the Gulf states, the Rohingya and the Palestinians. How can we now pretend to a share in the leadership of the UNHCR’s continuing effort to eliminate statelessness when, at the same time, we are enacting domestic legislation to create more stateless people? I beg to move.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I suddenly thought that the court which heard St Paul declare himself a Roman citizen must have been just as surprised as we are at some of the people who claim to be British citizens, both by name or background and present place of abode. Your Lordships will remember that St Paul made an important and entirely supported point. Having declared himself a Roman citizen, he was treated in a different way. We have an important point here, and I commend my noble friend Lord Avebury in raising it. This is a very difficult area, not least because the exemplars are not ones that are easily taken to the heart of the broad mass of the British people. That means that those people should be particularly able to call upon this House.

I live in a house which was previously occupied, a long time ago, by the man who won the War of Jenkins’ Ear—the Battle of Porto Bello. At that time we thought that British citizenship was of enormous importance. People who found it quite hard to explain how they had managed to become British citizens were still supported, sometimes for pretty dubious reasons.

I hope that my noble friend will consider very carefully the points which the noble Lord has made. We live in a world in which statelessness is one of the most terrible things that can befall anyone. If you do not belong and cannot come to belong, you are placed in an impossible position. In a sense I welcome that this is so peculiar. This so special a situation which has been adumbrated, and the others around it are small in number and, as I suggested, do not affect many people or raise their sympathy in this country. Indeed, I fear that they could easily be used by some organs of the press as another way to beat the Government on their immigration policy. That makes it all the more important that we are very serious about this.

I therefore hope that my noble friend, in expressing his view on this amendment, will reassure the House that we do three things which are basic to British justice. First, we will recognise that if we have granted citizenship, or if someone has citizenship, we will defend it, and do so even though it be to our own hindrance. Secondly, we will not continue, unless there is some really good reason, the unacceptable position in which we say to somebody, “We will take away your citizenship but will not tell you why”. I find that unacceptable. I can see why people do that, but the circumstances must be most extreme before it is reasonable and acceptable. Thirdly, to take away someone’s citizenship, it is not reasonable to say that you assume that they can get another country’s citizenship. It is only reasonable to say that you know that they have another citizenship; anything less than that is wrong. It may not be convenient, but it is not right.

We have been the signatory to and the driver of much of the international law that seeks to reduce statelessness to its minimum. I fear that in this particular case, we may, for very good reasons—in seeking to close loopholes and make neat what is essentially a not very neat kind of law—do something which will do great injustice to a very small number of people. However, it is none the less injustice if it affects but one.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I will be brief, because I do not want to repeat the lengthy debate we had on this issue on Monday evening. That the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has raised this again tonight, as well as the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, indicates the strength of feeling and the very grave concerns about the Government’s provisions, which would make stateless some people in this country who are currently citizens. The issue was never, as the noble Lord perhaps thought on Monday, about the withdrawal and deprivation of citizenship, but about the consequences of making people stateless, not just for that individual but for public safety, national and international security. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made the point about somebody either being trapped, stateless, in this country, and our obligation to that individual, or somebody being isolated overseas, with the implications that that has for the security of that country and our relationship with it.