Citizenship (Armed Forces) Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Friday 13th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

This is an interesting anecdote. I am proud to have participated in the armed forces parliamentary scheme since I was elected. On visiting a base—which should perhaps remain nameless—I was given athletic clothes, including a very short pair of shorts, and asked to take the fitness test. Can my hon. Friend enlighten me as to whether he had a similar experience when he visited the base in his constituency?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The personal experience of the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) is undoubtedly an enervating one for her and of great interest to the House, but I know that in responding to the intervention the hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) will not be tempted to dilate upon the matter, but will focus his attention on the content of the Citizenship (Armed Forces) Bill.

[Jonathan Lord]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker. I am interested to hear of my hon. Friend’s experiences I was told to bring muddy boots, but I am pleased to say that there was no fitness test and my muddy boots were not needed.

Pirbright, along with our other Army training camps, has a big role to play in helping to make our troops the best trained in the world. As their representative in the mother of Parliaments, I wish to know that they will be treated well by the Government, the laws of the land and all our public services, both during and after their time served.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

The Bill’s promoter is unavoidably absent from the Chamber for a few moments, but he will have to answer that question. My understanding, however, is that the answer is yes. We are creating a special dispensation today because we say, “Surely if someone has served their country for five years, they should not be disadvantaged in getting British citizenship just because they have been serving in Afghanistan or elsewhere.” That may be a controversial statement but what greater qualification is there to become a citizen of a country than to have served that country?

All armies in history have done that. The quickest and best way to become a citizen of the Roman empire was to join a Roman legion, and there was very good thinking behind that. I do not think we should be in a different position, but, again, this is for the Minister to answer. I am still not clear, however, not only about exactly how many people will be involved, but whether, if this Bill becomes law and the 1981 Act is still in place, someone who has joined the armed forces, behaved well and served for five years but has never set foot in this country will pretty well have an automatic right to become a British citizen. They will have to go through the normal processes, of course, but is that the thinking? I am not sure whether I have had an answer to that yet. I know some people watching this debate may not agree with that, but I just ask the question—I am not sure I have an answer myself. Are we now moving to a situation where someone who joins the British forces, serves overseas all that time and never sets foot in this country can become British citizen? Will the Minister please make a particular note of that question and answer it.

I ask that because the 1981 Act requires that

“on the date of the application he is serving outside the United Kingdom in Crown service”.

No minimum period of service is specified, nor is there any requirement to be present in the UK at any particular time. However, those who are not overseas or not still in service at the time of applying for naturalisation cannot benefit from the provision. These are all technical but important points.

The provisions made in the 1981 Act are, however, used sparingly, as we know. Home Office guidance sets out that criteria such as rank and quality of service should be considered when assessing applications. Quality of service is of key importance in the assessment, with applications that do not satisfy on that ground being unlikely to be accepted, regardless of whether they satisfy statutory requirements.

The amendments made by the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 give the Secretary of State discretion to waive all residential requirements where

“a particular case…is an armed forces case”,

where the applicant was a member of the armed forces on the date of the application. That does not, however, cater for individuals who have left the armed forces. I have said enough to reveal that these are complex legal areas that need to be tidied up.

Before I sit down, I wish to make a more general point about the armed forces, a subject in which I take a great interest as chairman of the Conservative party’s Back-Bench defence and foreign affairs committee. I hope that you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, if I use this opportunity to say that I am worried about the number of personnel in our armed forces and what is happening to our armed forces. I am now ranging a bit wide of the narrow point we are discussing. It has been a turbulent time in the Ministry of Defence, with a report due on the Defence Reform Bill at the end of October. A budget cut of 1.9% for 2015 will add to the large-scale cuts that have already been taking place, including recent reductions in the number of senior military officers. Many critics have voiced fears that such reductions could leave the UK with a smaller than adequate armed service.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is exceptionally cheeky on the part of the hon. Gentleman, and I feel sure, given the puckish grin on his face, that he is entirely conscious of the fact. If he wishes to air his concerns on this matter, he needs constantly to bear in mind the word “recruitment”.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I know I was being cheeky, Mr Speaker, but I could not resist the opportunity to try to expound on what is happening to our armed forces. I will not say any more about total defence spending, but, on personnel, I will make the following point. As of 2012, there were 750 non-UK citizens serving in the Royal Navy, which is relatively few of the 33,190 trained personnel; 7,640 non-UK citizens were serving in the Army, out of a total of 94,000 trained personnel; and only 120 non-UK citizens were serving in the Royal Air Force, which is a very small proportion of the 38,000. Intake of black and minority ethnic personnel at the higher levels of the UK regular forces is incredibly low, with only 20 officers joining in 2011 out of a total of 1,070. In the context of the wider armed forces debate, this is an opportunity for the Minister to talk about recruitment and his policy on attracting—or not attracting—people from Commonwealth countries to join the armed forces.

I also hope that the Minister will say a bit about that context and how the Bill will affect the immigration debate in total. I suspect that that is what lay behind the interventions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. Granting of UK citizenship in the year ending June 2013 was at a five-year high, with 204,541 applications having been accepted, with the figure having risen steadily to an average of an extra 7,000 successful applications a year. I know that the Minister cannot give too wide a discourse on the whole immigration debate, but it is important that we reassure people watching this debate that we are very conscious of not only the need to remove discrimination against the armed forces, but the wider immigration debate in this country. There has to be a balance.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I say to the hon. Lady that whatever the insatiable appetite that might or might not exist among colleagues for examples of taxing questions in citizenship tests, it is important to retain the focus on the Bill? I fear that dilating on what she regards as the flaws in an earlier citizenship test takes us some distance from that narrow focus, to which I know she will now return with enthusiasm and accuracy.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The enthusiasm and the accuracy with which I welcome the Bill are such that I want to hear confirmation from the Minister that any serving member of our armed forces who has settled in any of the territories described in the Bill will still have to go through all the aspects of acquisition of citizenship outlined in the 1981 Act, as well as the additional step—the citizenship test brought in since that time.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

Perhaps I am about to introduce a note of dissent into our discussions this morning. I think that when we bestow on people that highest honour of citizenship, British citizenship, we expect those who are so proud to take on our citizenship to understand aspects of our history and culture, and to understand the long and distinguished history of our armed forces, for example. That is why I welcome the fact that the citizenship test that this Government have introduced covers much more of the history, the culture and the spirit of democracy that we have in this country, rather than esoteric questions such as from which two places one can obtain advice if one has a problem at work. The possible answers are the national Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think that the point that the test that the Government envisage is in the hon. Lady’s mind preferable to earlier incarnations of it has now been very fully made. What is not legitimate is for the hon. Lady, while feigning politeness towards the Chair and acknowledgement of the instructions issued from it, then to proceed to do again precisely what I have indicated to her she should no longer persist in doing. I know that she is so intellectually dextrous that she will now transfer to the present, and we will look forward to the racy and intoxicating character of the remainder of her speech.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Mr Speaker, I shall have that speech of yours printed and engraved. It is so eloquent that I can only—