Clause 1 - Removal of existing nationality requirements
Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, Home, Constitutional & Legal Affairs; Beaconsfield, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The irony of the situation for the Irish was that, when the Irish Free State was set up, initially with the United Kingdom monarch remaining as King of Ireland, the matter was simply brushed under the carpet. It was a sensible and pragmatic British compromise. We simply decided to treat it as if it had not happened. To facilitate the continuing employment of Irish nationals in Britain, we decided not to treat Ireland as a foreign country. We repeated that in the Ireland Act 1949.
Subsequently, as legislation in 1996 demonstrates, there has been a move away from that position. Irish nationals enjoy the benefits of EU citizens, but their exceptional position does not now exist. Until 20 years ago, someone could have been born in Ireland with
parents and grandparents who had never set foot in the United Kingdom, but if they had gone to Belfast and asked for a passport, they would have got one.
I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but I hope that he listened carefully to my argument that my proposals are in part to provide the necessary reassurance that we are not being cavalier with the requirements of loyalty that come with being a civil servant. I am comfortable with the fact that many foreigners coming to a country and taking employment in its civil service will be outstandingly loyal in the discharge of their duties. I have no xenophobic view about that. If I were to go to a foreign country and it sought my service in helping to run it, I hope that I would be outstandingly loyal to that country. However, considering the powers that civil servants have in the discharge of their responsibilities, the public are entitled to reassurance that civil servants understand the nature of the function that they have taken on, which is not just any old job.