Nationality and Borders Bill

Sally-Ann Hart Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain]

I also rise to speak in support of amendment 12.

Citizenship is a fundamental right that speaks to our very sense of belonging and identity, which is why it is enshrined not just in law but in the UN charter, the universal declaration of human rights and the 1954 convention relating to the status of stateless persons.

Under this Home Secretary, the Government have failed to treat citizenship with the reverence and respect it deserves. By removing the requirement to give notice, she has done away with due process and has expanded her already draconian powers that allow her to deprive anyone of British citizenship, provided she believes it is in the interest of the public good.

Reference has been made to powers that, according to the analysis of the Office for National Statistics, could affect 6 million people, many from a Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Jamaican or Nigerian background. Let me be absolutely clear: that is the group of people the Bill will disproportionately impact, which is why this House must vote the clause down today.

Over the past fortnight since I originally raised this issue, I have had people telling me, much like some of the arguments we have heard from the Government Benches, “As long as you don’t break the law, you have nothing to fear from the Home Office.” I absolutely disagree: working-class people from a black, from an Asian or from any ethnic minority background have everything to fear from this Home Office. Let us not forget that it is this Tory Home Office that presided over the mass deportations in the Windrush scandal; that it is this Home Office that continues to prosecute a hostile environment against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers; and that it is this Home Office that uses Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” not as a warning, but as a guidebook. I therefore have no confidence, and neither do my constituents, that, based on its record, the Home Office will not further expand the scope of its powers to deprive someone of British citizenship on more spurious grounds.

The powers that the Home Secretary has even now to deprive someone of British citizenship already create two tiers in society based on foreign ancestry, but removing the requirement to provide notice takes things even further. An individual stripped of citizenship will not be told or given reasons and will therefore have no real right of appeal—and all this can happen even as they are being deported. Frankly, such a move should send shivers down the spine of anyone interested in upholding liberty and due process. I simply ask those who want to accuse me of sensationalising the situation to come walk for a day, for a year, for a lifetime in the shoes of someone the Home Office has decreed to be a second-class citizen, and then tell me that they honestly believe that these are not the real fears of those from ethnic minority backgrounds in our own country today.

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

I wish to focus on clause 9 but will refer to amendment 12.

Clause 9 amends the deprivation of citizenship powers in the British Nationality Act 1981. Currently, as Members have highlighted, section 40(5) of that Act requires the Secretary of State to give a person written notice of a deprivation order, the reasons for it and the person’s right of appeal. The power to deprive an individual of their citizenship has been available for more than a century, since the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914, and is currently also contained in the 1981 Act. Home Office powers to strip British nationals of their citizenship were introduced after the 2005 London bombings and broadened in 2014.

As we have heard, there has been some criticism of the clause in the House and outside the House. For example, the Runnymede Trust states that citizenship is not a privilege and that the Bill is

“a threat to ethnic minority Britons”.

I wholly disagree. Citizenship of any country is a privilege, not a right. We are all privileged to be British citizens. It is a privilege that comes with responsibility.

The deprivation of citizenship on conducive grounds is rightly reserved for those who pose a threat to the UK or whose conduct involves very high harm. It is integral to the national security of this country that if an affected person cannot be contacted, or if knowledge of their whereabouts derives from sensitive intelligence sources, we can act in the best interests of this country and our citizens.

Removing someone’s British citizenship is a last resort against the most dangerous people who pose a risk to society, or those whose conduct involves very high levels of harm. It is rare and always come with a right to appeal. Deprivation of citizenship on fraud grounds is for those who obtained their citizenship fraudulently and so were never entitled to it in the first place.

The Bill does not change any existing rights, or the circumstances in which a person can be deprived of their citizenship. Decisions are made following the careful consideration of advice from officials and lawyers, and always in accordance with international law. Each case is assessed individually. With regard to seeking to deprive an individual of their British citizenship on the basis that that is conducive to the public good, the law requires that this action should proceed only if the individual will not be left stateless.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sally-Ann Hart]

I agree, in that I, too, have constituents who have been waiting for five years for their asylum status to be decided. I am sure that the Minister agrees that the Home Office officials who deal with people need to have proper and efficient processes in place.

More generally, although human migration has been going on for millennia, we face increasing global challenges caused by a range of complex climate, economic, social and political factors. Uncontrolled mass migration has caused a swing to nationalism in some European countries, and we must not let that happen here. This country has always welcomed immigrants; we have lived together in a tolerant society that welcomes immigrants. The developed world, including our allies in Europe, needs to take better measures to control migration, but also to help people thrive in their homeland, rather than facing the indignity and lack of worth that they face in Europe, where people are exploited or detained in facilities. No man, no woman, no Government, nor any faith should be upholding this new form of slavery.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I rise in support of amendment 12, which was tabled by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). Before I speak to the amendment, let me put on record my complete and absolute opposition to this Bill in its entirety.

This Bill is a sham. This Home Secretary is intent on extending her predecessor’s hostile environment policies to ensure that migrants and asylum seekers feel unwelcome and unwanted in the UK. The legislation is not only atrocious, but poorly written, as is demonstrated by the fact that the Government tabled 80 amendments to their own Bill after it had undergone line-by-line scrutiny in Committee.

Let me turn to clause 9, which amendment 12 seeks to remove. The inclusion of this clause, which allows the Home Secretary to deprive a person of their British citizenship without any warning, is deeply worrying. In the last couple of weeks, more than 60 of my constituents have contacted me to say that they are concerned about the clause. The Government declare that citizenship is a privilege, not a right. They have got it backwards; citizenship is a right, not a privilege, and this clause represents a fundamental breach of the rule of law.

I secured my British citizenship in the ’80s, after nearly two decades in this country. It is people like me and those with migrant heritage who have the most to fear from this clause and this Government. Black, Asian and minority ethnic people—whether they are migrants or not—are frightened of what this Government could do to them, particularly in the wake of the Windrush scandal. Depriving someone of their citizenship is a serious undertaking; it should be subject to appropriate safeguards, which must include giving individuals notice. For this reason, I support amendment 12, which would remove the clause from the Bill.

I want to finish with the words of one of my constituents, who said:

“As an aunt to five children of mixed heritage, as someone with a sister-in-law who is Moroccan, as someone with friends who were not born in Britain, and as a human being who exists in this world, I believe this bill is inhuman, unconscionable, and evil in its intent.”