Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I was in some embarrassment on the previous debate, because I was not here for its opening and I take the procedures of the House seriously. Therefore, I did not feel that I could participate, but was frustrated because I feel strongly on the wider issue. The Committee may have noticed that I have my name both to Amendment 78, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and this amendment, which my noble friend Lord Lea has moved. That might seem rather contradictory, at one reading. My position is that if the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, are not to prevail, I would certainly want to see that moved by my noble friend Lord Lea taken seriously. I say that not only because I have been a trade union member all my life but because I believe that the trade unions have been, and remain, a very important part of our social fabric. If this is about encouraging people who seek citizenship to identify with and become involved in that social fabric, the trade unions are a very good way to do it. Having worked a great deal of my life in the voluntary sector, there is a great deal of overlapping because the trade unions are, in many instances, working hard on the very issues that some voluntary organisations exist to promote. It might well be that someone seeking citizenship found that they were more convincingly able to further some of those causes through trade union activities than via a particular voluntary agency. All of that underlines what was said earlier: this is a wonderfully interesting idea to have in the Bill, but while my noble friends in Government tell us often that legislation must be specific and beyond doubt—and I am with them 100 per cent on that—it has become absolutely clear that this part of the Bill needs a great deal more thought and consideration before it reaches the state of becoming part of our legislative reality. I must add one word to what the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said earlier; I am sorry to say it while he is unable to be present. Having worked a great deal of my life in the voluntary sector, I agree with the noble Earl: I am, if I may use the term unashamedly, considerably philosophically disturbed by what lies behind this part of the Bill. It seems to be in danger of demeaning the whole concept of volunteering which, as I have understood it, is about people voluntarily identifying with a cause and wanting to further it—not because they must be required to do it if they are to get citizenship. It reminds me rather of my days in the armed services, when the NCO came along and said, "I need six volunteers; you, you and you…". We need to keep the concept of volunteering as a rich principle in our society, because it adds to the quality of the work being done for the cause if people are genuinely volunteers, of their own free will and intellectual persuasion. Therefore, I take the opportunity of my noble friend’s amendment to add my name to all those who are begging the Government to think deeply about the wider implications of what they propose and, certainly, to think it through in more detail. Quite apart from the wider issues that I have raised, when it comes to specifying voluntary service I cannot for the life of me see why trade unions should not be part of acceptable voluntary activity.