CONSEQUENTIAL MODIFICATIONS OF THE BRITISH Nationality Acts (Hansard, 30 June 1981)

§ Mr. Christopher Price
We are coming to the amendments that I have proposed to clause 5.

The Second Deputy Chairman
Order. Is the hon. Gentleman moving the amendment?

§ Mr. Price
I am not moving the amendments, Mr. Armstrong. I am anticipating that when the Committee reaches clause 5 it might be the proper time to move the amendments. It is worth at this point alluding to the fact that clause 4 says who is not a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies. What it does not do is to say who is a citizen of Belize. Again I ask the Minister to afford the Committee an explanation of the clause. I understand that it is not on all fours with previous nationality Bills.
I recall previous Bills such as that relating to the Solomon Islands. I may be wrong, but I had understood that the purpose of an independence Bill was to say who is a citizen of a new country when it becomes independent. All this clause appears to do, as I read it, is to say who is not a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies. In asking for an explanation from the Minister, I am sorry for keeping hon. Members up, but I suspect that they will be kept up anyway. If the time is 12.20 am, 1.20 am or 2.20 am, what is the difference?
Is there any danger that the Government intend by this Bill to leave certain people in Belize with no nationality? That is the only issue that I wish to put to the Minister.

§ Mr. Ridley
I shall answer the last question first. I must give the hon. Gentleman a distinct and positive answer that there are no such provisions in the Bill which 819 leave anyone without citizenship. If he were to succeed in making the amendments that he has tabled to clause 5 he would achieve that object. He would deprive a large number of categories of people of citizenship of any sort. It is not the Government who are doing that but the hon. Gentleman. He cannot jib at the answer.
Clauses 4 and 5 deal with nationality matters. The purpose of the provision follows that in all previous independence Bills and is identical to many other Bills with one small exception to clause 5 to which we shall come. They define those people connected with Belize who will cease to be United Kingdom citizens when Belize becomes independent—that is in clause 4—with the normal proviso that those with close connections with the United Kingdom or a remaining dependency will not cease to be United Kingdom citizens. That is the purpose of clause 5.
Those clauses must necessarily operate against the background of the British Nationality Acts 1948 to 1965 because the new Bill will not be in force at the time this Bill comes into force.

§ Mr. Price
Can the Minister give us a guarantee about clause 4? Those who cease to become citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies will definitely, on independence, become citizens of Belize. Is that so?

§ Mr. Ridley
Yes.

§ Dr. M. S. Miller
Taking clause 4 in conjuction with the previous clause and clause 5, it is my contention that the Bill should not have gone through in this form. In it we deal with two related but different subjects. One is the granting of independence and the other is the vast subject of British nationality and who will be what nationality, with all kinds of difficulties which would require a Home Office spokesman of legal stature to explain to us.
If the Bill had been introduced and proceeded with in the way it should have been treated, many amendments would have been tabled to clauses 3, 4 and 5, totally divorced from the principle of the granting of independence. Does not the Minister realise that to put highly contentious matters into a Bill associated with an Act which is not yet an Act is not the way that the business of the House should be conducted?

§ Mr. Ridley
If the hon. Gentleman has any difficulty in understanding any of these clauses he has only to ask me about anything and I shall be only to happy to tell him. The fact that he does not understand it is no reason why the Bill should not proceed. I assure him that the clauses are standard for all previous independence Bills. They are not affected by the British Nationality Bill now before the House except in the way that I have outlined. There is an absolute necessity to legislate for citizenship at a time that an independence Bill is granted. One would not separate the two questions of independence and citizenship, because they are at the heart of the relationship between them at the time a country comes to independence.