§ The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead)My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
"It has long been recognised that our nationality law is out of date. The previous Government published a Green Paper in 1977. We said in our election manifesto that we would introduce a new British Nationality Act. I have published today a White Paper which contains our proposals for legislation. A Bill will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time permits.
"It is widely accepted that we need a new Citizenship confined to those who have close connections with the United 892 Kingdom. We propose that this should be known as British citizenship.
"The Green Paper proposed that all those citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who did not become British citizens should become British Overseas citizens. We have, however, been impressed with the argument that a separate citizenship should be established for the dependencies as a whole. We propose that this should be called citizenship of the British dependent territories. I emphasise that the establishment of this separate citizenship will not alter the United Kingdom's obligations and commitments to our overseas territories.
"Those who are now citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies but do not qualify for British citizenship or for citizenship of the British dependent territories will become British overseas citizens.
"Children born in the United Kingdom (or the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man) will normally acquire British Citizenship by birth. But we think that in principle there is a good case for providing, with the safeguards contemplated in the White Paper, that a child of parents neither of whom is a British citizen and neither of whom is settled here should not acquire British citizenship solely by his birth in the United Kingdom.
"A British citizen by birth, whether male or female, will transmit his or her citizenship to the first generation born abroad, and, normally, to the first generation only. But children born abroad to Crown servants who are British citizens will be citizens by birth, and there will be special provisions for children born abroad to certain other people who have close connections with business and other organisations based in the United Kingdom, or with some international bodies.
893 "All adults, whether Commonwealth citizens or foreigners, who wish to obtain British citizenship will do so by naturalisation.
"The present automatic entitlement of wives to obtain our citizenship by registration will be ended. Instead, both husbands and wives will be able to apply for naturalisation on the same terms as others, though after three years' residence instead of five.
"The present entitlements to acquire citizenship by registration possessed by wives, and by Commonwealth citizens who were settled here before 1st January 1973, will be preserved for an interim period of two years.
"After careful consideration, we have decided not to introduce any restrictions on the holding of dual nationality by those people who come here and acquire British citizenship by naturalisation or registration.
"Citizenship of the British dependent territories will be acquired under the same general pattern as that proposed for British citizenship. This citizenship will not give the right of entry to a dependency other than that with which a person is connected.
"British overseas citizenship represents in essence the relationship with the United Kingdom held by people connected with countries which were once part of the British Empire, or whose ancestral connections with the United Kingdom or its present dependencies are not sufficiently close to qualify them for British citizenship or citizenship of the British dependent territories. Children born after the Act comes into force to parents who have become British overseas citizens will not themselves hold that citizenship.
"I make it clear once again that we shall continue to recognise the special position for immigration purposes of certain United Kingdom passport holders, mainly from East Africa, and we shall maintain our undertaking to continue the special voucher scheme for them.
"It will no longer be necessary to use the term 'British Subject' as the common status of all people connected 894 with the Commonwealth. In the Bill, the only expression denoting the common status of all people connected with the Commonwealth will be "Commonwealth citizen".
"All those who have citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time when the Act comes into force will acquire one of the new citizenships. No one who is then a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies will be left without a citizenship. Generally speaking, those citizens who or whose parents or grandparents were born, adopted, naturalised or registered in the United Kingdom will become British citizens. Those citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies from overseas who have been here for five years and are settled will also become British citizens.
"There is a small group of people, formerly stateless and most of them children, who have become patrial by registration overseas and who we think ought to be given whichever citizenship their mothers acquire. Apart from these, every citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies who is patrial will become a British citizen and no one who has the right of abode in this country will lose it. In the long term, only British citizens will have the right of abode. But individual people who are not citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies but now have the right of abode will retain it. The Bill will not adversely affect the position under the immigration law of anyone who is lawfully settled in the United Kingdom, whether or not he becomes a British citizen. Nor will it affect our commitment to admit the wives and dependent children of men lawfully settled here.
"When the Act comes into force there will be some applications for citizenship still outstanding. The Bill will provide that an application for citizenship which has been properly made and is still under consideration at the time when changes in the law come into effect should be dealt with according to the law at the time when it was made, though if citizenship is granted it will, of course, be whichever of the new ones is appropriate.
"Mr. Speaker, I commend our proposals to the House".
895 My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
§ 4.30 p.m.
§ Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAMMy Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for repeating that Statement. It is a lengthy one, on a very complicated subject and therefore I am sure that your Lordships will appreciate that detailed comment will need to await both further study of the Statement and of the White Paper itself. I would say at this stage that I welcome in principle the proposal to bring in a new British Nationality Act. It is clearly needed. Indeed, it is something we had intended to do, as foreshadowed in the 1977 Green Paper. I would ask the Minister, first, whether the Government intend to seek to discuss this with the other Commonwealth countries, whether discussions have already taken place and whether any indications have come from Commonwealth countries of their views; because, as he has indicated in the Statement, there is a proposal for Commonwealth citizenship and there is, therefore, I assume, a need to seek reciprocity about that. I would ask also whether there are any implications for our citizenship law in the law of the EEC to be taken into account.
Perhaps I could now turn to the question of the status of women and ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, whether he can confirm these that proposals confer full legal rights of citizenship on British women as far as are concerned, first, equal rights with men on transmission of citizenship itself, equal entitlement for a foreign spouse of either sex to naturalisation and equal treatment for foreign fiancés and fiancées and spouses, with the same right of entrance into this country, regardless of sex.
I would agree with the conclusion indicated by the Government that it would be better on reflection not to make all those citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who do not become British citizens, "British overseas citizens", the new category which is proposed and which was envisaged in the earlier Green Paper. The working party of Justice was among those who had misgivings about the original proposals partly because of dangers of statelessness arising. The Justice working 896 party also suggested that such persons should be given a citizenship identifying them with a particular territory or country. I would ask the noble Lord whether this proposal would give as it is called here "citizenship of the British Dependent Territories" with any dangers of statelessness arising.
The only other comment that I would make at this stage is that I would certainly welcome warmly the decision to retain dual nationality. I think that that would be very widely accepted.
§ Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEYMy Lords, we, too, should like to thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, and, on the whole, welcome the idea of a new nationality law which will bring some consistency into a very complicated field. In particular, we very much welcome what appears to be a complete absence of sex discrimination—which will be a considerable step forward; although, in this context, I would join with the noble Lord, Lord Boston, in asking about the question of fiancés and fiancées. The question of wives and mothers is a fairly clear one. That of fiancés and fiancées is not entirely so. We cannot from these Benches think that this idea of dividing—not only as suggested by the Labour Green Paper into sheep and goats —into sheep and two kinds of goats is a very good one.
It would have been a much fitter end to a chapter of the British Commonwealth if we could have incorporated the relatively small number of people to whom this applies within full British citizenship. But since this is the situation that we have, there is one serious question that I should like to ask of the noble Lord. Given this situation of something that Kipling never thought of—which is lesser breeds, half within and half without the law—if you are one of these peculiar forms of half citizens and you get expelled from the country you are in, what is your relationship then with this country? Will these people (having had UK and Colonies citizenship) have the right to come in if they are expelled from the countries in which they now live? I think that is an important question.
§ Lord BELSTEADMy Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for the replies they have given to the Statement 897 of my right honourable friend today. I should be thankful if your Lordships would take the same view as that of the noble Lord, Lord Boston, who expressed the hope that detailed comment on this White Paper might await another, perhaps less exciting occasion. Incidentally, this White Paper, follows in many respects the recommendations of the previous Administration's Green Paper; except at the very beginning—something which caught the attention of both noble Lords, who have spoken—where there are proposals (and we are talking at the moment of proposals; legislation will have to follow) for three forms of citizenship and not two.
Perhaps I may now try to reply to the questions which were asked of me. This is a different situation from that in which the Commonwealth found itself in 1947 when members of the Commonwealth shared the same citizenship. Bearing that in mind, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Boston, that we are naturally in touch with Commonwealth countries from time to time on nationality matters. I would stresss that there is nothing in the White Paper which needs disturb in any way our friends in Commonwealth countries or in the dependencies. The noble Lord asked whether these proposals would have any implications for our membership of the EEC. When we joined the EEC, we had to define who our nationals were from those who held citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies; we shall now have to redefine those who are our nationals for EEC purposes within the scope of the proposals of the White Paper.
The noble Lord asked me three questions about the position of men and women under these proposals and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, joined with the noble Lord, Lord Boston, in asking them. My answers are: yes, in these proposals there is equality between the sexes as far as the conferment of nationality is concerned; yes, in these proposals there is equality between the sexes as far as transmission of nationality is concerned; as far as the immigration, the entry, of fiancés or fiancées is concerned, my last two answers refer only to the question of nationality. For the conferment for the purposes of nationality, the White Paper proposes full equality between the sexes. If your Lordships want to pursue the question of 898 the entry of different sexes, that must be pursued on another occasion.
Finally, the noble Lord opposite referred to the difficult question of statelessness with regard to British dependent territories. I may ask the noble Lord to glance at paragraph 103 of the White Paper, he will find this sentence:
While account will be taken of the United Kingdom's obligations under the international convention on the reduction of statelessness, it is generally understood that the country of birth should be responsible for remedying the situation"."The situation" is the situation that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, asked me about in the one main substantive question which he put forward.