Clause 2 - Naturalisation: spouse of citizen
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
6:30 pm
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I shall be brief. It took us an hour and a half to deal with only four groups of
amendments under clause 1, so we are clearly beginning to get into difficulties and I shall press on.
Anyone reading the amendments would not understand them, but they all address a simple point. The idea was not mine; it came from the Immigration Law Practitioners Association. The amendments make a point to which I think the Minister may be sympathetic. Clause 2(1) extends the existing language requirement to include those who are applying for naturalisation as the spouses of a British citizen or British overseas territories citizen. Under the Bill, spouses will also have to comply with the knowledge of the UK requirement.
It will continue to be possible for the Secretary of State to waive the language requirement on grounds of age or physical or mental condition, but there is as yet no provision to allow the Secretary of State to waive the knowledge of the UK requirement in such circumstances. The argument is that it should be possible to waive that requirement for those who come and apply on residence grounds and for those who come on marriage grounds.
The logic of that is clear. Some people, perfectly reasonably and lawfully, meet someone and decide to marry them. It may not take them six years to make a decision. In fact, it may not even take six months; some people in this country get married perfectly properly after six days, three weeks or whatever. We cannot expect people suddenly to fit in to those arrangements the learning of the language and so on. The person from this country may might speak the other language, or a couple may not have a language in common. Sometimes that does not prevent people from deciding that they love each other and want to get married. We must be sensible about this issue.
What is the minimum residency requirement, if any, that the Government have in mind before any residence in Britain by virtue of marriage can be turned into a citizenship entitlement? When people apply as spouses, they usually get a conditional right to be here. The period has traditionally been a year, but the Government have talked about it being two years. Would that apply in the context that we are discussing? If someone married a UK citizen and wanted to be naturalised, would it be assumed that there would have to be a minimum of two years before they could put in their application? The clause would be more sensible if it were amended in that way. I am grateful for the fact that such matters were brought to our attention, and that the Minister may be sympathetic towards the amendment.