Clause 1 - Naturalisation:
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
5:30 pm
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 95, in page 1, line 16, at beginning insert—
'(1AA) No Regulations shall be made under (1)(ba) or (bb) without prior consultation with, and agreement from—
(i) the Commission for Racial Equality,
(ii) the Citizenship Foundation, and
(iii) the Immigration Advisory Service.'.
The amendment is straightforward and follows logically from the last one. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic, although I do not propose to force it to a vote now. The amendment would ensure prior consultation with obvious candidates or organisations. It states:
''No Regulations shall be made . . . without prior consultation with, and agreement from'',
after which I list three organisations with an obvious stake in the matter. I do not pretend that the list is exclusive or perfect, but the organisations were not chosen accidentally. I included the Commission for Racial Equality, which self-evidently has an interest and would like to be involved, the Citizenship Foundation, a body that has made it its business to think through these issues and is keen to be engaged in the debate, and the Immigration Advisory Service, which sees the practicalities of these matters in large volume all the time.
When the CRE briefed us before Second Reading, it pointed out that there had not yet been proper consultation with interested parties about what constitutes citizenship and what defines a British citizen. There are various options. Is it our values? Is it our rights? Is it our way of life? The proposition is that we should have full and frank consultation. I am sure that the Government will be keen to do that; I do not question their good will. However, it is not for the Government to define what makes British life. It should be agreed more widely. We are all entitled to have a voice in that, regardless of our faith, colour or background.
It is rather paradoxical given where we are, but I took part in 1987–89 in a commission on citizenship set up by Lord Weatherill, the then Speaker, with widespread support. The other two parliamentary colleagues were none other than the current Home Secretary, who was the Labour party nominee and the then Member of Parliament for Mid-Kent, Andrew Rowe, who retired at the last election. Apart from us three, there were extremely eminent people such as John Monks, who was at that stage only the deputy general secretary of the TUC, Ted Wragg, Ben Whittaker, Maurice Stonefrost, John Beishon, Rodney Bickerstaffe and Professor Charles Handy.
The Speaker encouraged us to spend a lot of time considering how citizenship was defined. I do not want us to reinvent the wheel, because it is possible to have endless debates about this. I hope that we can draw on that serious work, in which people invested a lot of time and effort, and which had a slow gestation
period, and on the work carried out by the Citizenship Foundation, which is a thoughtful and engaged body. I should like us to end up with an agreement to a consultation process. As a minimum I should like us to agree that there are certain people whom we should regard as allies throughout this process. I am open about who those groups should be, but I am sure that they should be people who can look after the interests of the wider community outside.