Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, we really thought that the Government were getting somewhere with this amendment in Committee when the Minister agreed to reconsider the issue. The good character test was not a core principle of nationality law, as he asserted in his letter of 20 March, but was introduced less than three years ago when Section 58 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 came into force. The Minister also said that the number of women still alive who are potential beneficiaries of the Hong Kong (War Wives and Widows) Act 1996 was very small and that, in the event that an application was received, the Government would consider exercising discretion to waive the test. I wonder why the Government wriggle so hard to avoid this disrespectful and insensitive approach to a minute group of women whose husbands fought in defence of Hong Kong in the Second World War. Three years ago, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, told the House: "““we believe that we have brought them all into the system in one way or another””.—[Official Report, 7/2/06; col. 621.]" Now the noble Lord, Lord Brett, says that there may be only one left alive. If there is one 85 year-old left who might theoretically apply for British citizenship, is she really such a potential threat to the state that we cannot agree not to subject her to this test under any circumstances? The Government are re-enacting the power to impose the test, and we are merely saying that if the words in subsection (2) are omitted, that power lapses, giving effect to the undertaking in the Minister’s letter. It would be perverse in the extreme to insist on retaining this provision to guard against the extremely unlikely event that, after this Bill, an ancient widow satisfying the requirements of the 1996 Act, but with a string of convictions, will appear from nowhere and turn up here, armed with her brand new passport, to demonstrate violently against the G20. We owe it to the memory of our servicemen to remove this insult from the Bill. I beg to move.