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British Nationality Bill
26 OCTOBER 1981
[Mr. Timothy Raison]
(Mr. Mates) and others on Report on 1 June. We have considered the matter again as we promised; and we believe that the new arrangements are a marked improvement on the old.
This is true also of the changes made in another place to the arrangements for those who apply for citizenship as an entitlement but are refused. Amendments made in another place now make it clear that the restriction on access to the courts against refusal of citizenship, where the decision is at the discretion of the Secretary of State, does not affect in any way the ability of an applicant who has applied for citizenship as an entitlement to seek a review of the decision from the courts.
Amendments have also been made to various entitlements so that, whilst applicants still have to meet various requirements, their entitlements do not depend on their satisfying the Secretary of State that they have done so. These changes will, we believe, help to clarify a most important aspect of the Bill. The Government, however, propose to ask the House to disagree with amendment No. 61. That amendment seems to us to run completely counter. to what the House decided on access to the courts and the giving of reasons in discretionary cases.
Then there is one change, which was made in another. place despite strong arguments by the Government. This, in effect, gives people from Gibraltar an entitlement to British citizenship. Members will recall that there was a lengthy debate on this point on Report and that the House then agreed that no such change should be made to the Bill. The House will wish to consider the matter again in the light of the amendment made in another place, but I have to say now that the Government will not propose that. the House should disagree in principle to the amendment made in another place on this point.
I shall not go through all the amendments, but it will be clear from what I have said that there is a fair amount of business for the House on the Bill.
The time available for this business is limited. The Government attach the greatest importance to the passage of this measure this Session. It is long overdue and badly needed. We cannot go on with the uncertainties and confusion created by the outmoded arrangements for citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies and it is more than time, for the sake of all sections of the people of this country, that we had a distinctive British citizenship that carries with it the right of abode. The end of the current Session is, however, only a matter of days away, and time must be allowed not only for consideration of amendments made in another place, but for any subsequent exchanges between this House and another place that may be necessary.
The House will of course be aware that the Bill has already received the most searching scrutiny. In this House alone there has been about 170 hours of debate and over 500 amendments have been proposed. The Bill has been subject to equally rigorous scrutiny in another place, where nearly 10 days were devoted to it in Committee and on Report, and where well over 200 amendments were proposed in Committee alone. There has therefore been plenty of time for this important measure to be properly considered and discussed, and we do not believe that the curtailment of debate proposed in this motion can be said to prevent adequate scrutiny of the Bill. Those of us who served on the Committee will recall that the Committee
(Allocation of Time)
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rose substantially before its allotted time on four out of seven evenings after the main guillotine order had been approved.
Moreover, the motion has-as I said earlier-been so arranged that the House will have reasonable time to consider the important new proposals to which I have referred. The timetable will allow up to four and half hours' debate on the amendments which include those on descent and Gibraltar, and up to two hours' debate on subsequent matters, including appeals.
No one likes motions such as this, but the Government have a duty to ensure that at this late stage this much- needed measure does not founder for lack of time. We seel the motion as the only way of ensuring that the Bill completes its remaining stages within the available time and that the available time is used to best advantage. Wel are in this situation largely because we have honoured our pledge to approach the Bill constructively.
I have no hesitation in asking the House to support the order.
10.22 pm
Mr. Roy Hattersley (Birmingham, Sparkbrook): It is the habit of Oppositions to greet guillotine motions with a combination of outrage and astonishment. I propose to behave in neither of those ways. I am not even surprised by the motion. I am sure that the Government will regard what I say as justification for their motion. I do not begrudge them that because, in a sense, it is a justification: for what they have done.
If the Government feared that, given the opportunity, the Opposition would have discussed each Lords; amendment at length, they were right, although: most-perhaps all--of those amendments would make marginal improvements to the Bill. I concede at once that if we had had the opportunity, we would have spent time on each amendment and we would have taken every parliamentary opportunity available to kill or to make the Bill. As it is, because of the timetable resolution and the supplementary motion which has been moved today, and which, no doubt, will be carried, we have no doubt that the Bill will pass into law. That leaves us with the simple recourse of explaining again tonight, as I hope to explain tomorrow, that because the Government have pushed it through in that way, we will, as promised, repeal it at the first opportunity and replace it with a new definition of British citizenship that does not discriminate between the races which now make up our community.
I accept that the Government, determined to get their business and faced with an Opposition who would have done all they could to frustrate the Bill, inevitably decided on such a timetable motion. It would be the worst sort of parliamentary charade if I did not say that I understand why the Government have taken this action tonight, understanding that the Opposition are determined to defeat the Bill by whatever parliamentary measures are at their disposal.
I cannot allow the motion to pass without commenting for a moment on the deeply damaging consequences to community relations not of the Bill itself but of the way in which the Government have pushed it ruthlessly through the House. In another place the Archbishop of Canterbury said that on presentation it was a complicated and bad Bill. It is still complicated and bad.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook (Orpington): The Archbishop did not read it.
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