UK Borders Bill

I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Goodhart on his ingenuity in bringing what is effectively a nationality problem within the ambit of the Long Title of this Bill which is concerned with immigration. In the British Nationality Act 1948, a child born overseas to a British mother and a foreign father was not entitled to become a British citizen, whereas if the father was British and the mother foreign, the child could be British. This was one of the wrongs of history, which the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, said five years ago one could go only so far towards righting. When the matter was raised last week by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, who I am glad to see in his place, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Bassam—merely repeated that formula, which is a meaningless argument that can be used against any reform. In a number of debates, as well as in two meetings with Ministers in the summer of 2002, we never had any objective justification for the refusal to eliminate this wrong. In the British Nationality Act 1981, provision was made for the child of a British mother and a foreign father born abroad after 7 February 1961 to be registered as British by his parents while a minor. That had already been the subject of an administrative concession, as my noble friend Lord Goodhart explained. It became apparent that some children who might have benefited from that concession who, when they became adults, wanted to be British had forfeited their entitlement because their parents were unaware of the change or, for one reason or another, failed to act in time. During the debates on the 2002 Act, we persuaded the Government to enact what is now Section 4C of the 1981 Act, allowing those children to register of their own volition when they became adults. The effect of this change was that in families where children were born before and after the cut-off date, the younger children were entitled to British citizenship and the older ones were not. Michael Turberville, the leader of the NGO, Children and Maternal Parents Against Immigration and Government Nationality Situation—CAMPAIGNS—tells me that he has fewer than 300 pre-1961 children on his database, which conforms with the estimate that my noble friend gave of a few hundred people who might be covered by his amendment. My correspondent, Michael Turberville, thinks that there may be a few more who would like British citizenship but are not aware of his efforts over the years. We are not talking about a large number of people. Mr Turberville points that when the concession was made for post-1961 children, not a great number of them took advantage of it. He also tells me that only one of the pre-1961 children on his database would not benefit from the amendment of my noble friend. As it happens, that person has probably acquired a right to register through length of residence in the United Kingdom. On learning of this amendment, Mr Turberville wrote to me: "““CAMPAIGNS would gladly welcome any movement on the cut-off date that would incorporate any decrease in the current disenfranchisement of British women in their ability to pass on their nationality to their children both in other countries and to non-British fathers. This is the 21st century and discrimination in nationality and identity on the basis of gender should cease. Children of British fathers have not had to endure years and decades of being denied their birthright; it is time to put equality into the national identity of what it means to be British. Equality before the law and Parliament should be paramount in all aspects ""of British life. This is one of the last bastions of discrimination against British women that we would like to see buried in the archives of history””." He adds that any movement on the 1961 date to accommodate the remaining handful of people would be greatly appreciated by his membership. They would bring skills and knowledge and other resources to what many consider to be their rightful home. When we discussed this problem on the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill in February 2006, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, responding on behalf of the Home Office, rightly observed that this problem was, "““sexism and nothing else as far as I am concerned””.—[Official Report, 7/2/06; col. 630.]," and paraphrased the mantra that was repeated by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, and by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, the other day that we cannot undo everything that went before. Parliament can and does amend older legislation that is incompatible with our international obligations—in this case, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The Government were proud to announce the ratification of the optional protocol to CEDAW in December 2004, which ostensibly gave women who wanted to complain against general discrimination by the Government the right to approach the UN Committee on CEDAW. However, when Mrs Constance Salgado tried to complain about the law, she was told that her complaint was inadmissible because of the Government’s reservations on nationality and immigration. Mrs Salgado has read the exchange that we had on the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and she comments: "““It appears that the Government is still entrenched in the old philosophy, that when those affected by the discrimination die … the whole problem will be solved””." The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was unable to give any rational explanation for refusing to eliminate this sexism from our national law, and his estimate that 3,000 people a year might be affected is wrong by about two orders of magnitude. The suggestion that the victims of this discrimination can become naturalised by length of residence in the United Kingdom is also wrong, because at present they have no right to enter the UK. Since he thinks that they already have the right of abode, he ought to have no problem accepting the amendment. We now have a woman Home Secretary, and she may take a different view from her predecessors. I appeal to the Minister to discard his brief and promise the Committee that he will draw her attention to what has been said today, as well as to what was said in 2002 and 2006, and will at least ask her to meet us before Report so that together we can eliminate this discrimination from the statute book.