Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 2 and wish to clarify the amendment which I moved on Report and which was voted on and has resulted in Clause 39. When I spoke on Report, I made it clear that those whom we wished to help were those who were coming to the end of their journey towards citizenship and who were already on limited leave to remain and were poised to apply for indefinite leave to remain. As line 6 is currently worded, as a result of my previous amendment, applications submitted before the commencement of Part 2 would be assessed under current arrangements. Of course, that is exactly what would happen anyway. The concern is for applications due to be submitted just after Part 2 comes in, which, without a period of grace, could potentially be caught in the new citizenship process. Amendment 1 would therefore give, as I always intended, this period of grace after the commencement and not before it. Amendment 2 deals with the other problem caused by the defective amendment, which referred to an application made by any person for "limited leave to remain". This should have been an application for indefinite leave to remain, a much later part of the process. A close reading of Hansard would underline the fact that I spoke to this effect on Report. I only regret that the amendments did not reflect what I was saying or what the House voted on. I hope that this clarifies the situation and that these amendments will be accepted and incorporated into the Bill, as the House voted for. I beg to move.