Nationality and Borders Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I am deeply concerned by and opposed to the great majority of the proposals in this inherently authoritarian Bill. Much of it appears to be written to satisfy front-page tabloid headlines rather than to fix the broken asylum system. It amounts to a fundamental rejection of our international obligations under the 1951 UN convention relating to the status of refugees and does nothing to resolve these complex issues at all. Even the Government’s own impact assessment suggests that measures in the Bill could lead to an increase in unsafe journeys across the channel rather than a reduction in them. The Bill originally tried to criminalise not only asylum seekers but those who try to help and rescue them. I cannot recall a more immoral and wicked piece of UK legislation.

I am disturbed by clauses 9 and 10, which enable a Home Secretary to deprive UK nationals of citizenship without notice and restrict stateless children’s access to British citizenship. As a British citizen with dual nationality, I personally feel the ice-cold chill of those proposals. It looks and feels like a ramping up of the hostile environment. I will not support a set of clauses that create a hierarchy of British citizenship. The Government are trying to reframe citizenship as a privilege, not the right that it is. The message this sends is that certain citizens, despite being born and brought up in the UK and having no other home, remain migrants, so that their citizenship and therefore all their rights are permanently insecure.

This Bill clearly disproportionately targets those of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or other racial groups, regardless of their country of birth. The racialised nature of this tiered system is obvious: the citizenship of those like myself, many of my constituents and millions of others of minority and migrant heritage is less secure and less important than those who belong to majority ethnic groups in the United Kingdom. It is a shameful piece of legislation that we should all be concerned about. Much of the Bill appears to be written to satisfy the front pages of tabloids, as I have said. It is not in favour of all the communities such as those of our parents, who came here years and years ago and worked hard to rebuild this country, and they are facing this because of this Tory Government.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

There have been some powerful speeches, and I want in particular to pay tribute to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), whom Conservative Members would have done better to listen to rather than shout at.

I want to address the Government’s clause 9, which proposes removing people’s citizenship without notice and, in effect, removing their rights of appeal. When people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds raise concerns—deep concerns—about this proposal, the response from the Government is, “Trust us”. “Trust us”—the people who deported black citizens in the Windrush generation? “Trust us”—the people who sent “Go home” vans around working-class estates? “Trust us”—the people who authored the hostile environment? “Trust us”—the people who are talking in this legislation about offshore detention centres? “Trust us”—the people who have created an atmosphere in which others are trying to demonise those going into the waters off our country to try to save lives and prevent death? “Trust us”? It is no wonder that the people at the sharp end of this Government’s hostile environment and at the sharp end of this racist legislation do not trust this Government.

It is absolutely appalling that people are being made to feel as if they do not belong in their own country and as if they are somehow second-class citizens. Let me contrast that—[Interruption.] No, they are not being made to feel that because of Members of Parliament raising these concerns. It is because of the legislation—the racist, divisive, scapegoating legislation—that this Government are bringing in.

[Alexander Stafford]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Richard Burgon]

I am not going to give way. The hon. Member talked enough rubbish before.

I want to draw a contrast with a community event that I attended in the most ethnically diverse ward in my constituency, Gipton and Harehills, in Leeds on Friday. Young people were there reading poems about their experiences, and one poem read by a local resident was about how the community has welcomed asylum seekers and welcomed refugees. Rather than using the issue of migration as a weapon of mass distraction to distract people from the responsibility that the Tory Government and their policies have for the misery in their lives, this Government would do better to listen to the message of hope and unity from diverse communities and stop peddling this legislation of division, racism, scapegoating and hate—and I make no apologies for this speech.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I just want to put on record four things. First, this Bill is an appalling piece of legislation. It is designed to appease the most backward elements in our society and it is designed to chase headlines in the popular media. The attacks on refugees and the attacks on people who support refugees are nothing but appalling and disgusting. The idea that this country has always been a welcoming place for refugees is simply not true. Often, it has been very hostile towards refugees. If we were that welcoming, we would not have so many people who have legitimately sought asylum in Britain living in desperate poverty, because the Home Office cannot be bothered to process their applications, and they are living in penury as a result. It would not be criminalising people who are trying to save lives on our shores, or prosecuting people in the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, or anything else. We should all be very proud of people who demonstrated in memory of those who died off Calais, including the 250 people who attended a demonstration at the Stade in Hastings a couple of weeks ago.

I wish to refer to three parts of the Bill. I absolutely support new clause 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith). I have been a member, and in the past chair, of the Chagos Islands (British Indian Ocean Territory) all-party group for many years, and I worked with Olivier Bancoult, and many other Chagos islanders. We did wrong to the Chagos islanders in the 1970s and ’80s when they were driven off their land, and we have done wrong by them many times since then. The reason British nationality was offered was that the late Tam Dalyell and I tabled an amendment to previous legislation, to try to get recognition of the rights of Chagos islanders. Unfortunately, the Foreign Office and the Home Office collectively got it wrong, and the new clause corrects a mistake—let us be generous and call it a mistake—that was made many years ago, and will grant security to Chagos islanders living in this country.

I strongly support new clause 8 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy). Nationality fees should be based solely on the cost of processing, not on the Home Office making a vast amount of money out of that. The new clause would help to right what is an intrinsic wrong.

In my remaining 39 seconds, I strongly support amendment 12, tabled by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), about the removal of British nationality. Many of us in the House—probably everybody—has at some point been to a citizenship ceremony at our town hall. They are nice; they are moving occasions. But all that could be for naught. The Home Secretary could simply remove the right of citizenship from someone who has gained it in this country or gained it through their heritage. Such a removal requires the agreement of another country, but people will not get that, and we will end up with stateless people as a result.