Clause 40
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]
1:30 pm
Damian Green (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)
I want to ask the Minister some brief questions about clause 40, which deals with the application requirements for citizenship. I shall focus on the categories of people to which the requirements will apply.
Under subsection (11), in order to qualify toward naturalisation, the time spent in this country has to be spent while resident on a certain type of visa or entitlement, including ILR, Commonwealth right of abode or European economic area entitlement. Time spent in the UK on a visa that is limited as to duration will count only if leave is granted for a purpose set out in the rules made by the Secretary of State, so it is impossible to know to which categories of people they will apply. There may well be large numbers of people on certain visas who do not fall within the category. I hope that the Minister can clear up who and how many people will be affected.
Clause 40 also introduces amendments to the number of days that a person applying for naturalisation will have to have been present in the UK for each year of their qualifying period. As things stand, a person intending to qualify for citizenship can be absent from the UK for up to 540 days during their qualifying period and for no more than 90 days during the final year of the period. Barring the final year of qualification, there are no limits on the duration and timing of other absences, so the person seeking to qualify for citizenship can spend time away from the UK as and when they need or wish, within the limit.
Clause 40 seeks to impose stricter rules on absence by requiring that a person must not be absent from the UK for longer than 90 days in each qualifying year. In practice, that might mean that a person who consistently remained in the UK for the first two years of their qualifying period but was absent for more than 90 days in their third year, perhaps as the result of a genuine family emergency or work commitment, would thereby jeopardise their application for citizenship. The change imposes a much heavier restriction on freedom of movement and might unfairly discriminate, particularly against those who have a family emergency. Can the Minister provide some explanation?
The clause also highlights the desirability of having the secondary legislation flowing from clauses explained and made visible to the House while we are considering the underlying clauses. The regulations flowing from the clause might have dramatically adverse impacts on people. The Minister may well have a perfectly good explanation, but at the moment it is impossible for the Committee to take an intelligent view, because we simply cannot know the facts. At the very least, I hope that the Minister can provide some kind of explanation at this stage.