My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her support in drafting these amendments, and I hope that she will give an assurance that the Government do, indeed, support these amendments. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, for addressing many of the concerns that I raised in Committee, particularly those expressed to me by the Law Society of Scotland, which was extremely dissatisfied that, in the original Clause 9, the Government had not fully justified the removal of citizenship without notifying the affected person. It asked that this clause be reconsidered, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for doing so.
Equally, in Committee, I raised the concerns expressed to me by the European Network on Statelessness in its briefing. It was very concerned that Clause 9 as drafted would
“have severe impacts on the rule of law and on a person’s fundamental rights”,
and that, as drafted, Clause 9
“disregards many of the UK’s international obligations, including the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality, the obligation to avoid statelessness, and the right to a fair hearing.”
In its view, the UK Government
“has not provided any justification as to why such a restriction on fundamental rights is needed.”
I pay tribute to the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich; many of my concerns have been addressed. I support the amendments introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and support the reasons that he has given. The restrictive range of circumstances has been greatly reduced in which a citizen’s rights could be taken away. I support the powerful safeguards he set out as to why a citizen
could be deprived of their citizenship, the rights of appeal, the provision that a citizen must be informed that their citizenship is going to be removed and the reassurance that he set out that could be given by condition C at that time. I support the amendments.
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