Deprivation of Citizenship Status

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend asks whether we have sufficient powers. It is right that we keep our powers under review at all times. If we feel that things need to change, and if that change can be brought about, we would bring it to the House, as we did very recently with the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019.

It is worth saying that no matter what powers we have, any prosecution would require sufficient evidence because of our absolute commitment to due process. That is incredibly difficult when people have gone abroad, joined terrorist organisations and carried out the most horrific attacks. It can be incredibly difficult to achieve justice by obtaining evidence that we can present in a court of law under whatever power we have. That is why, as Home Secretary, I must look carefully at all the powers at my disposal. In some cases—and only in some cases—when it is deemed that the best way to keep this country safe is through deprivation of citizenship for someone who has more than one nationality, that should be taken as a serious option.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

May I bring the Home Secretary back to the answer he gave to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is no longer in her place? He referred to the Prevent programme. It clearly does very valuable work, but, as far as I am aware, it is a UK-based programme, so the question remains: in what way can he find out why or how a young woman was radicalised when she was a child if she is in a camp in Syria? What assessment has he made of the risks of a large number of people remaining in a camp in Syria and developing networks there that provide us with a risk here at home?

[Sajid Javid]

The right hon. Gentleman rightly brings to the attention of the House the fact that these are tough decisions that have to be made after weighing a number of factors. I will not refer to an individual case, but he talks about people in camps abroad who are members of terrorist organisations. We might have limited evidence of what they have done as members of those organisations, but we know that they have joined. I hope he accepts that there are risks of their staying in the region and of returning to the UK—there are risks both ways, which is why each case should be looked at individually and judged on its own facts. I do not pretend for a second that these are easy decisions. Any Home Secretary must take all factors into account and everything should be balanced out, but ultimately it is my responsibility to keep our citizens safe. That must be paramount in my mind when making decisions.