Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord is extremely tenacious in the way in which he deals with issues. I can always rely on him to come up with another solution. Before I start on this, I want to say something further in the interests of telling the noble Lord as quickly as I possibly can about the issues that he raised in the last group, although I am sure that I am breaking all kinds of procedure. This is to do with those people that the Indian Government have now given a different status. On the record, I say that there will be no further charge and mere notification will be sufficient. I think that the noble Lord and Members of your Lordships’ House would want to hear that immediately. I have just had that advice, and I am very grateful to my officials for doing that so speedily. Having made the noble Lord happy on one thing, I am now going to take away his happiness—I know that the noble Lord will not be surprised by that. I am grateful to him for talking this through with me on a number of occasions. I have heard a number of times as a Minister that, ““it will only affect a small number of people””. The noble Lord is of course correct on that. When you look across all of government policy, not least in this area which is quite complicated and important to try to get right, there are lots of potential issues where only a small number of people might be affected and where the noble Lord, in looking back on the amendments that we have already discussed and some that we may discuss on Third Reading, might say that only a small number of people are affected so therefore why on earth should the Government hold back on giving in. The reasons are various. I think that the noble Lord had a hand in the decision to make the date 1961 in the first place. It is also important to recognise, as my noble friend Lord Filkin said, that we cannot undo everything that went before. As a woman, I can think of lots of legislation that I would like to go back over, going back several hundred years—and I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, could think of some too—that might still have some resonance for us today. There is a principle about people getting their citizenship as individuals and not because they happen to be related to someone else as adults. It is different with children; we have had a lot of discussions about children and the noble Lord knows that I am concerned that we keep that under review. As adults and real grown-ups—because they are pre-1961 so they are nearly as grown up as me—they are able to think about their entitlement as an individual and not just because they happen to have a connection with a sibling. Although the noble Lord has tried to be very ingenious, as ever, in the way that he has approached this, I am going to resist it on the basis both that we cannot simply move policy around on the grounds that it only affects a few people, and that we have made a substantive approach to try to redress a problem, which was sexism and nothing else as far as I am concerned, in the right way. It is one that the noble Lord had a very strong hand in. I cannot move any further when I fundamentally believe that, as grown-ups and adults, not merely as siblings, people should consider their own position in that context. I know that that disappoints the noble Lord. He knows how much I try, particularly at this time of night, not to disappoint him, but I fear that I must do so on this occasion.