Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

moved Amendment No. 66A:"After Clause 43, insert the following new clause—" ““SECTION 9 OF NATIONALITY, IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM ACT 2002: EFFECTIVE DATE (1)   Section 162 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (c. 41) is amended as follows. (2)   In subsection (5) for ““a date appointed by the Secretary of State by order”” there is substituted ““1st January 1900””.”” The noble Lord said: First, I apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord Avebury. Today some of his relations are leaving for New Zealand and he is at Heathrow Airport. I have no doubt at all that on Report he will have much to say about immigration matters at Heathrow Airport. He is quite happy that I should be able to deal with the issues that need to be rectified. The amendment concerns Section 9 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The need for my noble friend’s amendment requires explanation. This section of the Act has not been brought into force and, so far, there has been no explanation of why that is so. The section was designed to give illegitimate children the same rights as legitimate children to acquire British citizenship by registration. I shall quote a letter that my noble friend received from the Library. He assures me that a copy has been given to the Minister. If that is not so, I shall put that right. When he inquired of our Library he was told:"““I am writing in reply to your question regarding Subsection (5) of Section 162 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. This relates to the bringing into force of Section 9 of the Act which will provide a new definition of the mother and father of a child for nationality purposes. You asked what progress has been made concerning the introduction of this provision. On 9th December 2004, the then Minister of State for Citizenship, Immigration and Nationality, Des Browne, stated the following:""‘British citizenship is acquired automatically, at birth, by a person born in the United Kingdom if either his mother or (providing the child as legitimate) his father was at the time of the birth either a British citizen or settled in the United Kingdom. Where, owing to illegitimacy, British citizenship is not acquired automatically it may be acquired subsequent to birth by registration on application to the Secretary of State. Such registration is discretionary, but the current policy is to grant it where the father is a British citizen, there is satisfactory evidence of paternity and both parents consent. Section 9 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 will remove the distinction in British nationality law between legitimate and illegitimate children but will not take effect until regulations concerning proof of paternity are in place’””." This poses considerable difficulty. Why are the regulations concerning proof of paternity taking so long to produce? The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, has been at the forefront of establishing children’s rights. The Government have a good record in recognising issues such as children growing up with single parents. They have taken some progressive decisions on issues that we would dare not have discussed a few years ago. The Minister is aware of the letter from the Library, as I explained earlier, and I am sure that she will not tolerate the anomaly that now exists. We suspect that this matter is not very high on the Government’s list of priorities. Proof of paternity is required in many documents. It is required in matters of inheritance; there must be appropriate wording somewhere else in the law that can assist in this task. We have established the right of civil partners. We frown upon words such as ““illegitimate child””. There is now a need for this provision to be introduced under Section 9 of the NIA Act 2002. The section is already on the statute and there is no reason why its implementation should be delayed. It is worrying that no clear explanation has been forthcoming, but I hope that the Minister will rectify that anomaly. I beg to move.