Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am pleased to move the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend following discussions between Committee and Report. I am very grateful for the indulgence of the House, which allowed us to take away a number of items based on specific cases and to seek to deal with them. That was a useful and profitable way of doing things. I am grateful to the officials in the Home Office who came down from the nationality division in Liverpool to help to progress those. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, reminded us at the time that, while we were dealing with case law that arose from individual cases that might assist us, the matters of principle would come back. Indeed, as noble Lords can see from the Marshalled List, there are a number of amendments on matters of principle. The Government’s amendment relates to the registration of minors under Section 3(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981. Section 3 enables a child born outside the UK to register as a British citizen if his or her parent is unable to transmit British citizenship automatically because he or she is a British citizen by descent. The law currently specifies that an application under this section must be made within 12 months of a child’s birth. The Government accept that, in view of the changing employment and residence patterns over time, the 12-month requirement set out in 1981 is now too stringent. The amendment therefore removes the 12-month deadline and replaces it with a requirement that a child should be under 18 on the date of application. In future, a child up to the age of 18 will have an entitlement to register if his grandparent had or would have had British citizenship other than by descent on commencement of the BNA 1981. The parent is thus a British citizen by descent. While this broadens the category of people who can gain British nationality under this route, it continues to be essential under Section 3(2) that the parent in question has lived in the UK or qualifying territory for a period of three years before the child’s birth, except where that child was born stateless. It is also a principle of national law that good character must apply to all those over the age of 10 who are applying for citizenship. Thus, by increasing the age requirement to 18 for this route, we must ensure that good character applies to those applying between the ages of 10 and 18. Applicants for British nationality must satisfy the Secretary of State that they are of good character, based primarily on the applicant’s criminal history, but also on their financial standing, their candour in relation to immigration and nationality matters and their general standing in the community. It is entirely consistent that those applying under this section must be vetted to ensure that they meet the good character requirement. I beg to move.