Nationality and Borders Bill

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

There he was citing the well-known formulation of Hannah Arendt. Deprivation of citizenship is such a far-reaching and draconian power that it must be accompanied by proper procedural safeguards. Clause 9 goes in precisely the opposite direction, removing the most basic safeguard—it is really just at the Home Secretary’s discretion even to tell the individual that their citizenship is lost to them. I agree that, in some circumstances or contexts, or for some reasons, this may be necessary and notice cannot be given to an individual. We can all, I suppose, imagine situations in which that might have to occur. But to permit the Home Secretary to take this drastic course, simply on the basis of a determination by them that this is in the public interest, is a procedural safeguard so weak as to be completely insupportable.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, we have benefited from the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, because he has reminded us that, although we have heard some very moving speeches going a little wide of the mark, Clause 9 is all about how you notify the unnotifiable.

I will go back to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and declare the interests that I have in the register. We as a House have to decide what we do about the criminals who wish to do us serious and long-lasting harm in the context of this. Perhaps it is too wide-ranging, but it is a necessary bid to try to ensure that, where we have people who wish to do us harm, they are somehow prevented from our giving them, under existing legislation, the ability to do so.

I have very carefully read the judgment of the Court of Appeal, and the key question that we now have to turn our minds to is whether we wish to empower the Secretary of State to deprive a person of citizenship without giving notice. In many ways, this debate should be all about that because, speaking I suppose as a practising solicitor, I cannot find Clause 9 as a change in the policy of deprivation of citizenship—the change proposed is all about notification. So Clause 9 does not allow the Home Secretary to remove citizenship on a whim, it is not targeted at particular ethnic minorities and it does not change the reasons why a person might be deprived of their British citizenship. Clause 9 does not remove the right to appeal a decision to deprive. I cannot see that law-abiding British citizens have anything to fear from Clause 9.

We are charged by the court in the following terms. Lady Justice Whipple said this in the ruling delivered yesterday:

“There may be good policy reasons for empowering the”


Home Secretary

“to deprive a person of citizenship without giving notice, but such a step is not lawful under this legislation. If the government wishes to empower the Secretary of State in that way, it must persuade Parliament to amend the primary legislation. That is what it is currently seeking to do under the Nationality and Borders Bill”.

She concluded, which brings us back to where we are now, that

“it is for Parliament to decide,”

This has been a valuable debate, but I think we have strayed too far from the key question: how do you notify the unnotifiable?

There are evil people. I am probably one of many Members of this House who has received letter bombs and death threats. When I was in the Cabinet, I had death threats from three separate organisations. Fortunately, the Post Office intercepted the letter bombs. There are people who wish to kill us, to injure us and to destroy the fabric of our society, and we must try to focus on how we are to stop that happening.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not speak on Second Reading, but I am delighted to have been here today to have heard the speeches from noble Lords, and what an interesting debate it has been. I have learned a good deal, and I am indebted to the Bingham Centre, whose publications I now read avidly to inform myself about legislation that comes before this House.

I am rather pleased to be following the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, because I was persuaded of the problems with Clause 9 by one of the paragraphs in the analysis from the Bingham Centre:

“Clause 9 departs from the requirements of the Rule of Law by allowing a British citizen to be deprived of their citizenship without even being warned about it, or told the grounds for it. There is zero judicial or parliamentary oversight of the dispensation of notice, and the grounds can be as insubstantial as the mere administrative inconvenience that it is not reasonably practicable to give notice.”


If that is what is intended by the legislation before us, there is definitely a chilling effect, as referenced by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, in the suggestion that this is how we should operate. I do not do demur from the argument that there will be difficulties at some point, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, but these are very wide powers and they have, as the Bingham Centre says, no judicial or parliamentary oversight at the point at which they would be invoked. Giving these powers to the Home Secretary—any Home Secretary—is unacceptable. In the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, they would be divisive and would, in my view, not accord with the values of fairness, of justice or of equality before the law.