'(1) A person who is ineligible to be employed or hold office in a civil capacity under the Crown by reason of the rules made under section 2 may appeal to a Crown Employment (Nationality) Rules Tribunal ("the Tribunal") for an exemption from the rules.

(2) The Secretary of State shall make regulations with respect to the composition, conduct and operation of the Tribunal.

(3) The Secretary of State may not make regulations under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

(4) The power to make regulations under this section is exercisable by statutory instrument.'.- (Mr. Chope.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 1, page 1, clause 2, leave out lines 13 to 16 and insert

'in a reserved post.

(1A) A post is a reserved post if-

(a) it is a post in any of the security and intelligence services, or

(b) it is within subsection (1B) or (1C), and a Minister of the Crown has determined that it is necessary for requirements as to nationality to be satisfied in relation to the post.

(1B) The posts within this subsection are-

(a) posts in Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service and posts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and

(b) posts in the Defence Intelligence Staff.

(1C) The posts within this subsection are posts whose functions are concerned with-

(a) access to intelligence information received directly or indirectly from any of the security and intelligence services,

(b) access to other information which, if disclosed without authority or otherwise misused, might damage the interests of national security,

(c) access to other information which, if disclosed without authority or otherwise misused, might be prejudicial to the interests of the United Kingdom or the safety of its citizens, or

(d) border control or decisions about immigration.

(1D) A determination under subsection (1A)(b) may relate to a particular post or posts, or to posts falling within a description specified in the determination.

(1E) In this section "the security and intelligence services" means-

(a) the Security Service,

(b) the Secret Intelligence Service, and

(c) the Government Communications Headquarters.'.

Amendment (a) to amendment 1, line 3, after 'services', insert ', or the Home Office'.

Amendment 2, page 2, line 9, at end insert-

'(e) any brother or sister of a person within paragraphs (b) or (c).'.

Amendment 3, page 2, line 37, leave out from 'section' to 'House' in line 38 and insert

'may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each'.

Amendment 4, page 3, line 3, clause 4, leave out subsection (2).

I feel as though we have discussed the subject of Crown employment and nationality before. When I looked at my records, I found that I was not wrong. Indeed, new clause 1 has been put forward in similar terms on previous occasions, using the iterative process. That concept is well known to Mr. Dismore, as I cannot recall how many times this Bill has been before the House. Each time, the Bill has been an improvement on its previous incarnation, but it still lacks that extra ingredient of new clause 1, which would improve the Bill enormously.

New clause 1 introduces the concept of natural justice into these procedures rather than requiring them to rely on a ministerial fiat. If there is no right of appeal, people may rightly feel aggrieved. This is the last time that I shall draw the analogy today, but some Members of this House feel that they should have a right of appeal against the rulings of Sir Thomas Legg. I think that the House is likely to find some means of ensuring that there is such a system of appeal, and it is in exactly the same spirit that I tabled the new clause. People who are aggrieved as a result of a decision by the Government under the terms of clause 2 will ask "What can I do about this? Am I unable to obtain any remedy for the Minister's decision?" I consider that it would be reasonable, and in accordance with the system of British fairness and justice, to enable that to happen.

A significant number of people will be affected by clause 2. I understand that if Government amendment 1 -which deals with reserved posts-is accepted, as many as 5 per cent. of all civil service posts may be affected. I stand to be corrected on that figure, but in view of the size of the civil service at present, we are talking about potentially tens of thousands of posts.

We no longer have full employment, as we did when the hon. Gentleman first presented the Bill. We now have a desperate and significantly increasing level of unemployment. I believe that, in the last year, unemployment has effectively doubled in my constituency. Against that background, we should expect many more applicants for any such posts than there may have been in the past. There is scope for many more people to be disappointed, and therefore many more people will feel that their rights have been trampled on. New clause 1 offers a safety valve by allowing appeals to be made to the tribunal.

I know that my right hon. Friend Mr. Knight-who could not be present today-is enthusiastic about the new clause, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend Philip Davies for supporting it today.

Government amendment 1 effectively rewrites clause 2 by removing the generalities contained in lines 13 to 16 and explaining the concept of reserved posts much more specifically. The Government are suggesting that reserved posts should include

"a post in any of the security and intelligence services".

I do not think any Member present would disagree with that proposal. They also suggest that a post should be designated a "reserved post" if

"it is within subsection (1B) or (1C), and a Minister of the Crown has determined that it is necessary for requirements as to nationality to be satisfied in relation to the post."

That brings in posts within the

"Diplomatic Service and posts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office" and also

"posts in the Defence Intelligence Staff", which, together, cover a significant number of posts.

If the Minister were to decide that it is necessary for nationality requirements to be satisfied in relation to those posts, that could have significant implications for people who wanted to apply, hence the importance of new clause 1 in order to satisfy applicants that justice has been done, the rule of law has been applied and decisions are not arbitrary. That is important because one way of challenging arbitrary decisions by Government is by seeking judicial review, but that process is extremely long-winded, very hard and expensive to access. That is another reason why I think it would be better to establish a specific tribunal with responsibility for the matter.

The next group of posts is set out in proposed new subsection (1C). They include

"posts whose functions are concerned with-

(a) access to intelligence information received directly or indirectly from any of the security or intelligence services" and

"access to other information which, if disclosed without authority or otherwise misused, might damage the interests of national security."

I think most people would agree with the inclusion of those two groups. Indeed, their inclusion reflects concerns expressed by me, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire when we were members of the Committee considering the Bill back in 2007.

The proposed new subsection also covers posts involved in

"border control or decisions about immigration."

My hon. Friend and I have proposed an additional group, however. We seek to include people involved with the Home Office-that requirement would be inserted into the Government's proposed new subsection (1A)(a)-because the Home Office has control over many aspects of security. Those responsibilities may be more junior in the hierarchy than those addressed by the intelligence and security services, but I know precious little about them because of reasons of confidentiality. We all know about the Home Office, however, and we are aware that there are people in that Department who deal with serious organised crime, which is a lot more rife than it used to be.

Those people are charged with dealing with our national security at a local level. For example, I know that the Dorset police constabulary is charged with dealing with security at the water events and sailing activities that are to take place down in Weymouth during the forthcoming Olympics. Many people are expected to attend and the Dorset police constabulary is already involved in working out what security precautions are needed to ensure that those activities take place without disruption.

My hon. Friend mentions the Dorset police, but is he aware that the Devon and Cornwall police are also considering the problems for Torbay, should the tall ships be racing there during the Olympics? Would that situation not be similar to that which he talks about in Dorset?

Similar but probably different in scale, because the ships are bigger in Torbay but there are more of them in Weymouth. My hon. Friend-it is wonderful that he is in the Chamber assiduously dealing with these matters on a Friday, as is so often the case-has drawn attention to the fact that my example of the Dorset constabulary is not unique and is replicated in a lot of other constabularies. However, it is an example of a Home Office activity that makes Home Office posts wholly relevant for consideration as additions to those already listed in Government amendment 1, which in general I support because it brings more detail into the Bill.

I want to speak briefly to amendment 2, which would insert into clause 2 the phrase

"any brother or sister of a person within paragraphs (b) or (c)".

Why should parents and spouses, deceased parents, civil partners or people living together as though they were spouses or civil partners be the only groups of people deemed connected, such that they might have a relationship that could involve undue influence? I should have thought that siblings come into that category as well, which is why we have tabled amendment 2.

Amendment 3 would ensure that we have to use the affirmative procedure for any draft instrument instead of the negative procedure, so at least we could ensure its being debated in this House. We could not of course ensure that it could be amended if we did not like it, but at least we would have the chance to debate it. For all I know, the hon. Member for Hendon, the Bill's promoter, may well have wanted to include an affirmative resolution but was dissuaded by the Government, who, as we know, want as little legislation as possible to be subject to scrutiny in this House, and therefore prefer the negative resolution procedure. However, that is as may be and we will no doubt hear from the Bill's promoter in due course about why the affirmative resolution was not in the Bill to start with.

That brings me conveniently to amendment 4, which would leave out subsection (2) of clause 4. I tabled it because I thought it would concentrate the minds of the Government on the whole Bill. I got the impression when it was last discussed in Committee that they were getting rather lukewarm about it because of the change in the employment situation, the rapid rise in unemployment and the conflict that could be caused by opening up posts in the Government service to aliens who are currently unable to qualify for those posts. The Government could see that there might be-

The Deputy Speaker interrupted the business (Standing Order No. 11(2)).

Bill to be further considered on Thursday 22 October.