William Cash
Main Page: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)Department Debates - View all William Cash's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I cannot speak about an individual case—it would not be appropriate for me to do so at the Dispatch Box—although I do understand the points that he has made. As I said earlier, many people, including of course the hon. Gentleman, will have heard the comments of Ms Shamima Begum and they will be drawing their own conclusions.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
On 1 September 2014, I raised the question of returning jihadists with the then Prime Minister—after the murder of Lee Rigby and before the murder of many other people in Manchester, Westminster and elsewhere. I did say that I thought this was not something that might happen, but would happen. I mentioned article 8(3) of the 1961 United Nations convention on statelessness, which does provide the tools to which my right hon. Friend has referred, if the Government are prepared to take them up. It says that a person may be rendered stateless if he has acted
“inconsistently with his duty of loyalty”,
behaved in a way
“prejudicial to the vital interests of the State”,
or declared
“allegiance to another State”
and shown evidence of repudiation of allegiance. Will my right hon. Friend be good enough to look at that again? I have raised it several times, including with the present Prime Minister when she was the Home Secretary. Will he take another look at this because I do think the situation is now becoming more than critical?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend, as we have heard, has long taken an interest in these issues and has contributed greatly in so many ways in trying to fight terrorism. He has raised another important point. In the past, our lawyers have looked at these issues, but he has asked me whether I would be willing to look again. I will certainly do that, and I will write to him.