It is not about that at all. I am sorry that the hon. Lady may have missed some of my earlier comments, although I appreciate that she has been watching from afar. As I stated earlier, the provision is about dealing with a small cadre of individuals who may have waived or surrendered their previous citizenship as a means of frustrating the Government’s attempts to guard our national security by using our existing deprivation powers. The Home Secretary would need reasonable
satisfaction in exercising the power to deprive. It would then be open to the individual in question to take whatever steps they needed to take to regularise their position. We are closing a gap that the Labour Government left us by virtue of the changes that they made in 2002 and built on in 2006. The Supreme Court highlighted that gap in the al-Jedda case. Our proposal is intended to guard our national security.
We recognise the comments that have been made here and in the other place, but Lords amendment 18 would prevent deprivation of citizenship from being pursued in the case of an individual who had no recourse to another nationality. Every country operates its own nationality law, and there are a range of requirements and eligibility criteria. As part of the “reasonable grounds” consideration, the Home Secretary will of course consider whether there are any legal points that would prevent an individual from regaining their former nationality. The individual in question will retain a full right of appeal, which will be to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. The courts will be able to consider whether the Home Secretary was correct to conclude that there were reasonable grounds to believe that that person was able to become a national of another country or territory under its laws.
As the Government have stated in both Houses, the proposal to extend the Home Secretary’s powers to deprive citizenship is an important and timely measure to strengthen the security of the UK. It has rightly been subject to substantial debate, and to scrutiny by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and Members of both Houses. We do not agree that a small Committee from each House would be the right place to consider the matter. It would not have access to the appropriate closed material to make further assessments beyond what has already been discussed in the House. Having such a Committee would also cause unnecessary delay, leaving a loophole to be exploited and creating a barrier to effective action for a considerable number of months, if not years. It is important that we close the loophole in a timely way, which is why the Government have decided to proceed with a narrower measure than we had originally proposed in preference to allowing delays for a Committee to consider the issues.