Clause 48
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Damian Green (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment 56, in clause 48, page 39, line 3, at end insert—
‘(4A) In this section a person is not considered of good character if they have been convicted of any offence that is triable on indictment.’.
The purpose of the amendment is to explore one of the slightly unclear notions on the face of the Bill by inserting a new subsection (4A). I wish to explore what the Minister means, and what the legislation purports to mean, by “of good character,” because that underlies one of the key points of this part of the Bill on citizenship. I think it would clearly be uncontroversial across the Committee that people who are to be granted British citizenship should be of good character, so it is worth while for us to have a debate on what constitutes being of good character.
The background illustrates why the debate is so important: over the past 12 years under the Government, the number of grants of citizenship is at an all-time high. The number has more or less quadrupled since 1997; indeed, in 2007, the last year for which figures are available, the annual increase was itself 7 per cent. and the number was 164,635. By comparison, only 37,010 people were granted citizenship in 1997.
It is not for the Committee, while debating the amendment, to discuss whether that is a good or bad thing. However, from the tone of everything the Minister has said during our Committee debates and, indeed, since he became the Minister for Borders and Immigration, I imagine that he thinks that percentage is too much and that he is trying to slow down the flow. Indeed, this part of the Bill makes the process more difficult, as evinced by many of the protests that we are getting from people who will find it so.
To some extent, we can regard this part of the Bill as the Government slightly belatedly addressing the fact that the current test and regulations may not have fulfilled all the criteria that the Minister would want—or, indeed, that many others would want. The specific purpose of our amendment is to cover anyone who has been convicted of a serious offence, to ensure that they cannot be defined as being of good character and, therefore, eligible for a grant of citizenship.
A new British passport is granted every five minutes these days—that is what those figures mean in time terms—so we need to be absolutely sure that every one of those new passports goes to someone who will play a positive role in the life of this country. I assume that the Minister agrees that anyone convicted of a serious crime would not be covered under any definition of good character, so our amendment has the wording,
“any offence that is triable on indictment”,
which covers crimes that are triable either in court and indictable, or triable only in a Crown court. It is quite deliberately set at that level so that we exclude summary offences, such as motoring offences. There is always a balance to be struck in such definitions; we are not simply trying to exclude everyone who may have committed what most people would regard as minor offences, but we do particularly want to stop violent criminals.
Violent crime is growing alarmingly fast in this country, and one of the areas of particular resentment is when people discover that a violent crime has been committed by someone who may not have leave to remain here. That has knock-on effects on public confidence not just in the criminal justice system but also in the immigration system, so any move to clarify the position in respect of the commission of a violent crime by anyone who intends to settle in this country and gain citizenship will be an important step forward. To a large extent, I imagine that the Minister would agree. I am not trying to open up any particular controversy with the amendment, I am just seeking clarification about what the Government mean.