§ Lord AVEBURYasked Her Majesty's Government:
In what manner a number of judgments in 1977 on illegal entrants and overstayers complicated nationality work and slowed down the rate of processing applications, bearing in mind the fact that no illegal entrants are known to have come to the notice of the Home Office as a result of nationality applications: and whether they agree that the drop in productivity of the staff processing these applications occurred mainly between 1975 and 1976 and must have been the result of factors other than the judgments mentioned.
§ Lord BELSTEADA number of High Court judgments in 1977 established that entry to this country obtained as a result of deception, misrepresentation or fraud was in certain circumstances unlawful and that subsequent residence here was also unlawful. It therefore became necessary to establish that applicants for registration as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies had entered the United Kingdom lawfully and that their residence could be counted as meeting the statutory residence requirements. Many applications were found to require further investigation, and sometimes an interview. Contrary to what the noble Lord assumes, some applicants were found to be here illegally but the precise numbers are irrelevant to the question of delays in dealing with applications for citizenship; it was the extra consideration which had to be given to all applications for registration and the extra inquiries which were necessary which complicated and slowed down the registration process.
The decline in the number of applications for citizenship granted in 1976 271WA may reflect in part the uncertainty which then existed about the treatment of applications where it was apparent that entry had been secured by deception, misrepresentation or fraud, and which was largely removed by the court judgments in 1977, and may also reflect in part the comparative simplicity of many applications made in previous years under the Pakistan Act.