Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

This amendment seeks to obtain clarification of the way that the Secretary of State gets to be satisfied that a British overseas citizen, British subject or British protected person applying to register as a British citizen does not have any other citizenship or nationality now or did not have at any time since 4 July 2002. This means that where an applicant is deemed to have or to have had some other nationality, he has to obtain a certificate from the authorities of the state in question showing that in fact he is not its citizen. The Minister will no doubt say that the requirement has operated reasonably in the sense that the UKBA will not demand proof of non-citizenship of countries with which the applicant manifestly has no connection. However, where the applicant is connected with a country by reason of his ethnicity, they do ask for proof, which can be difficult or sometimes impossible to obtain. It is alleged that there are instances where individuals with no other citizenship who are unable to extract a letter by normal means from their consulates have obtained one by giving a present to the appropriate official. Whether or not that is true, it is an obvious risk. Amendment 98 provides noble Lords with an opportunity to debate the proposals in the review of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, entitled Citizenship: Our Common Bond. It was commissioned by the Government, but studiously ignored by them since it was published a year ago. In their response to the Path to Citizenship consultation last July, all the Government said was: ""We have carefully studied Lord Goldsmith’s report into citizenship"." Now is the time for the Minister to provide a little more information to noble Lords about the Government’s thinking on the recommendations. In almost every other country of the world, the idea that a person could have a nationality but not a right of abode would be treated as nonsense. The most fundamental right of a national is to enter, and reside in, the country of his nationality. All other rights and entitlements stem from the right of abode. We in this country are unique in that British citizens derive their right of abode from an Act of Parliament—the Immigration Act 1971—rather than intrinsically from their nationality. We have been unable to ratify Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which 42 out of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe adhere, because Article 3(2) of the convention requires that: ""No one should be deprived of the right to enter the territory of the State of which he is a national"." The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, recommended that applicants in all the residual categories of citizenship, except BOTC and BNO—the latter has already been discussed—should be given access to full British citizenship. We would add BNOs, but stipulate—although I acknowledge that the necessary words are not in the amendment—that applicants from these groups should have no other citizenship. I beg to move.