UK Borders Bill

Reflecting on that question is important. I think we probably had in mind a wide range of circumstances that needed to be catered for had the provision been more extensive when my noble friend Lord Filkin dealt with it back in 2002. The historic discrimination in the nationality legislation affected not only women who were British by birth in the United Kingdom but those whose citizenship derived from a connection with some other part of the former British Empire. In some families, several generations may have been excluded from our citizenship through a combination of the statutory discrimination itself—that is what it was—and certain life choices that were made as a consequence of it. I return to the point that any geographical or temporal limitation in the new registration provision would have produced hard cases, whether the issue is 7 February 1961 or 31 December 1948/1 January 1949. The Government at the time felt that they were justified in drawing a line around those who, had they applied in time, would have registered as citizens under the terms of the policy announced in 1979. That was one of the anomalies that was corrected at that point. I accept that there is an element of discrimination wherever there is a cut-off point, but there was some logic originally to having a cut-off point, as I have explained, and that was the logic that was adduced then.