Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

In moving Amendment 92 and speaking to Amendment 101A, I want to make it clear from the outset that they are not intended as a substitute for the right of the Chagos Islanders to return to their homeland, from which they were evicted by the decision of the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, in April 1969. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the Chagos Islands APPG, whose objective is to help resolve the issues concerning the future of the islands and of the Chagossian people. The all-party group is, in fact, holding an important meeting with the Minister, Gillian Merron, as we speak. I am sorry not to be able to be there to hear her remarks, which could have a bearing on these amendments. As the Committee will be aware, the plight of the dispossessed Chagos Islanders has been considered by the courts, and what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, called "the whole sad story" of how, ""the removal and resettlement of the Chagossians was accomplished with a callous disregard of their interests"" is related in the judgment of the Judicial Committee in the case of Bancoult. It is also being considered by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in another place as part of its report of July 2008 on the overseas territories. In response to that report, the Government said that they regretted, ""the way the resettlement of the Chagossians was carried out and the hardship that resulted for some of them. We do not seek to justify the actions taken in the 1960s and 1970s. These regrets have been repeated on many occasions"." Those pious sentiments have not been any benefit to the children of the Islanders born in exile. Although some of the 1,000 who are resident in the UK have become full UK citizens, they have to pass the habitual residence test and, even then, many cannot afford the enormous fees that are payable for full citizenship. The Home Office does not seem to be properly aware of these problems, although they were highlighted by the Foreign Affairs Committee. I wonder whether the Minister could at least tell us how many of the 1,000 people in the UK have managed to get full British citizenship. We are asking your Lordships now to consider the rights of the Chagos Islanders and their descendants to full British citizenship. Under Section 6 of the British Overseas Territories Act 2002, a person who was born after 26 April 1969 and before 1 January 1983 to a woman who was a citizen of the United Kingdom colonies by virtue of her birth in the British Indian Ocean Territory, and who was neither a British citizen nor a BOTC immediately before commencement of Section 6, became a British citizen by descent. The omission of subsection (2) would mean that they became a full citizen and thus able to pass on their citizenship to their own children. Amendment 101A would delete the requirement in Section 6(1)(a) that a person be born after 26 April 1969 to be eligible for British citizenship. That was the date when the removal of the population from the islands was authorised. It appeared in Section 6 without consultation with the Chagossians or their advisers. I believe that the idea was that, before that date, anyone who left the islands was free to return. In that scenario—for example, if they went to Mauritius—they were voluntarily absent and any mother who wished to do so could have returned to give birth and thus to confer citizenship on her child. That was not in fact the case. It has now been made clear that difficulties of return arose much earlier. The planning for the evacuation of the islands was started in August 1964; the Exchange of Notes with the USA on Diego Garcia was at the end of 1966; and the shipping link between Mauritius and the Chagos Islands was severed when Mauritius became independent in March 1968. In the 1950s and in the 1960s up to that date, people came and went, almost entirely to Mauritius, and had no way of being aware that giving birth outside the islands would seriously handicap their child 40 years down the line. In response to the Select Committee, the Government said that there was no precedent elsewhere in nationality law for citizenship to be extended to a third generation born outside the UK or in an overseas territory. But that is not correct. They concede that, until 1914, there were exceptions, but even under the British Nationality Act 1981 a person serving in the Armed Forces or in a community institution who was a British citizen by descent could transmit his or her citizenship to a child. Even if there were no precedents at all, equally there is none that I am aware of for the expulsion from the dependent territory of the whole population. That was a shabby and disreputable episode. It becomes even more despicable if we now prevent the children of the victims regaining rights that they would have had if their parents had been able to remain in their ancestral lands. I beg to move.