Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I do not want to say a great deal, but I do want to say something about chapter 4, which deals with Crown employment nationality provisions. I did not have a chance to address the matter when we considered my amendments in Committee, because of the guillotine that was operating. The extent to which the Bill has been subject to guillotine motions throughout its progress is regrettable, as it has meant that we could not discuss many things that should have been discussed at greater length and that some things were not discussed at all. I wanted to refer to the provision, because it is rather close to my heart, as several Front-Bench spokespeople have said. I began work on the issue about 10 years ago, and the measure has gone through various guises, including presentation Bills, ten-minute Bills and so on. The object was to straighten out the provisions on recruitment to the civil service. The measure has been around for a long time—I think that this was my ninth attempt to legislate on the issue—and it began as a hand-out Bill with Government support. The Government then went rather neutral and decided that it was not such a good thing after all, but eventually we won them round again. After a lengthy period, the measure in its various guises enjoyed different degrees of support from the Government, and the same is true of the Opposition. The Bill, which had no priority at all, reached Report stage on three separate occasions, which was something of an achievement. The late Eric Forth took it upon himself particularly to victimise the Bill, and when he passed away, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) considered it to be the Eric Forth memorial Bill, given the right hon. Gentleman's opposition to it, so it was an effort to make progress with it. Realistically, we are now going to put right problems that go back the best part of 200 years. When the Act of Settlement was introduced, it was a welcome measure, but has time went by, it faded away, with the Aliens Restriction Act 1914, and a plethora of regulations, orders and EU directives, which intersected to create such a spider's web of provision that it was impossible to work out who was entitled to work for the civil service and who was not. Some strange criminal offences were created—people did not even know they existed—and there were weird anomalies whereby the widow of a 9/11 victim who was an American citizen married to a British person could not work for the civil service, but Abu Hamza, should he pass the exams, I suppose, could, because he had British nationality. There were all sorts of strange outcomes, but we now have workable provisions. Clause for clause, this is probably the most scrutinised piece of legislation that the House has introduced in recent years, apart from the fox-hunting legislation, given the number of times that it has been debated and considered. We now have provisions that will create a civil service that is more representative of our multicultural society. The legislation will reserve about 10 per cent. of civil service posts where it is appropriate that UK nationals hold them, but overall we have workable and sensible provisions that will create a civil service that reflects our society. I am very pleased that, at long last, we have been able to take the legislation this far. There is always many a slip between cup and lip, but given the assurances of support from the various Front Benchers, I hope that, with a fair wind, this part of the Bill will survive the wash-up and, equally, the depredations of the other place, which it has unfortunately never managed to reach. I live in hope that, at long last and after nine attempts, we have finally achieved the objective of reforming the nationality rules of the civil service.