Clause 39
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]
9:15 am
Damian Green (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)
We now move on to a different and—as I am sure the Minister and the Committee accept—much more contentious part of the Bill, within which this is probably the most contentious clause. I know that it is always a crude measure of how dangerous and damaging a piece of legislation is, but judging by the letters and e-mails that I and other colleagues on the Committee have received over the past couple of days, this is certainly one of the most difficult parts of the Bill. Indeed, that is partly because we owe the existence of the clause to the debates and votes in another place.
The clause as it stands, of course, does not reflect what the Government want to happen. The Government have been resisting any kind of protection against the retrospective application of their new proposals on citizenship; indeed, they have tabled an amendment that would delete the clause. I understand that that amendment has not been selected for procedural reasons. At the moment, I assume that the Government still do not want the clause to survive and that they are seeking to return the position to what it was when the original Bill was introduced in the House of Lords. I assume that the Minister will speak to his amendments.