Citizenship and Civic Engagement (Select Committee Report)

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, both on the way in which he introduced this debate and on the way he steered his committee to produce such a perceptive, thorough and very topical report. Of course, he has form, because he previously produced and published a very good report on campaigning, to which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, referred earlier.

I was struck by the reference to the power of words. Indeed, much of this report is concerned with words, which is not surprising because after all, Parliament is all about words. Words are extremely important. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred in a particular context to the word “fundamental”, and that point has been echoed by others. It is an extremely important part of this report that we should look again at the way in which we express these ideas. Of course, these ideas have been expressed not just in this debate but previously on many occasions. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire. As a Minister, and before and after his service, he was very interested in the whole concept of citizenship. This afternoon he again referred to citizens’ rights and a social contract in our democracy. We also had two remarkable speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Alton. There must be something special in the water in Liverpool that has produced such eloquence and analysis, which I very much appreciated.

The debate also reminds us that citizenship is a two-way, mutual relationship. It is important to re-emphasise that the state and the body politic have a crucial responsibility to the citizen as well as nurturing the citizen’s role in the community and the nation. There was a vivid reminder of that in an article by Kamila Shamsie in the Guardian on Saturday entitled “Exiled: the disturbing story of a citizen made unBritish”. I confess that I had forgotten that the Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 made it possible for any Briton to be deprived of their citizenship and status as a UK citizen, even making them stateless if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the person has done anything,

“seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom … or any British overseas territory”.

That article quotes circumstances in which there has been no effective right to challenge or appeal. Given what we now know about the incompetence of the Home Office, let alone the evidence of UK complicity in extraordinary rendition, there is clearly room for review and reform of the way the Government respect citizens’ rights. Respect goes in both directions.

Similarly, both the committee’s report itself and the various other documents to which the excellent Library briefing has drawn our attention, emphasise the vital importance of fully involving what they describe as “hard-to-reach” groups. I detect some recognition from the committee that that has salience in the current debate about those who have been left behind in terms of household income and lifestyle in recent decades, and the growing sense of inequality in Britain. There is a widespread perception, with hard data to support it, that some citizens are much more equal than others. In that connection, the conclusion of last week’s UN report regarding Brexit is hard to argue against. The most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society will be least able to cope and will take the biggest hit. Our not-too-distant ancestors—I am thinking particularly of the great Liberal, William Beveridge—would be horrified to learn that we are still looking at such issues in those terms.

That is what makes so very timely the common theme, which permeates all these documents, of enhancing the efforts to engage everyone in our democratic systems. My own involvement in charities, from working for Shelter in the 1970s—a national campaign for the homeless—to working with the food banks movement currently, reinforces my own experience that ensuring a voice for the voiceless is very challenging. I know that other Members of your Lordships’ House—notably some of those here today—have had that experience and continue to have that involvement. I accept that the voluntary sector may well be more successful in achieving greater levels of participation than government agencies, national and local. That does not mean that the latter can be let off the hook.

There are so many recommendations in this report that I enthusiastically agree with, and time is so limited, that I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I concentrate on the contentious issues that have arisen during the debate and especially where the Government’s responses have been judged to be inadequate or complacent. That word has been repeated by a large number of your Lordships in the debate. For example:

“The Committee is very firm that the promotion of Shared British Values should be separated from counter-extremism policy”.


That is self-evidently so important if we are to achieve a greater positive commitment to the responsibilities and opportunities of citizenship. Frankly, the Government response is very wordy—possibly also rather worthy—but it is scarcely conclusive, persuasive or a model of clarity.

The section on education in the Select Committee’s report is very valuable and many references have been made to it by those who have much more expertise in and experience of this issue than I do. I draw particular attention to the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, both of whom as Secretaries of State had a major role in that respect. I pay tribute also to the work done by others over the years, notably by the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall of Blaisdon and Lady Eaton, and of course by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. Despite the extensive government response, most of us would say that the current state of citizenship teaching is at best patchy and at worst simply lamentable. The problem is not the quality of those who teach, but the totally inadequate quantity of professionally trained teachers of the subject. There is also a lack of official emphasis on its importance for new citizens.

The Association of Citizenship Teaching has briefed us that we have fewer than one trained specialist teacher per 10 schools, which is roughly the same analysis as that given by the noble Lord, Lord Norton. The free schools and academies seem to be especially weak in this respect. Of course, the fact that it is not covered to the same extent in their curriculum requirements does not help. There was unanimous agreement in the committee that:

“The Government has allowed citizenship education in England to degrade to a parlous state. The decline of the subject must be addressed in its totality as a matter of urgency”.


I agree with my noble friend Lord Greaves on the twin issues of volunteering and democratic engagement, and the relationship between them. Turning to the latter, I am aware that some of the initiatives the Electoral Commission and the Cabinet Office have undertaken have been valuable. I am very committed to the efforts that have already proved successful for attainers, notably the in-house registration programmes in Northern Ireland. They have been so successful that I simply do not understand why they have not been extended to other parts of the United Kingdom. We do not need more pilot schemes; these programmes already work very well and they should be replicated over here.

I have also been involved in attempts to increase successful registration programmes for UK citizens abroad. This is hampered by the now totally anachronistic insistence on linking to a UK constituency that the individual might have left up to 15 years ago; clearly, this will become even more absurd when and if that limit is removed.

Finally, on the issue of naturalisation, I am glad to see that the Government agree with the committee on “good character” requirements for applicants, and that:

“Honest mistakes made during the application process should not by themselves be treated as evidence of bad character”.


I should have thought that that was pretty obvious, and I very much support what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said on the tests for children. It is really quite ridiculous that we are still being forced to adopt that attitude. However, what I really do regret is the parsimonious objection by Ministers to the recommendation that states:

“It is inequitable that the Government should seek to make excessive profits out of those seeking naturalisation”.


I should declare an interest, in that my son-in-law, previously an American citizen, saw the sense not only in marrying my daughter but in becoming a British citizen. He has recently been through this exercise. The total costs that can be incurred are well over £1,000. By the time someone has finished the process, it is a great deal more than the £370 that is the actual cost of the administrative burden. I know of several cases where the many hundreds of pounds in fees and other costs have been a real source of aggravation and discouragement. I warmly support the views expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Judd.

The Minister will, I am sure, do his very best to respond both to the debate and to the exceptionally thoughtful committee report on which it has been based, as he always does. I do not envy him his task today: not only does the scope of the debate and the report attract the generalities that Ministers trot out—although we do not expect them from him—but the current government obsession inevitably leads to an impression of complacency on the hugely important issues involved here. I wish him success.