Joint Committee on Human Rights concerned by Immigration Bill's powers to make British citizens stateless

Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) has today issued its second report on the Immigration Bill.

You can read the full report here in PDF format or here in HTML format.

In the report, the Committee focuses on the issue of the possible use of new powers contained in Clause 60 of the Bill to deprive naturalised UK citizens of their UK citizenship and leave them stateless.

JCHR expresses significant concerns about the use of such powers.

The Committee says removing a naturalised citizen of their citizenship while they are abroad would appear to carry a very great risk of breaching the UK's international obligations to the State which admitted the British citizen to its territory, and recommends that the Bill be amended to make it a precondition of the making of an order by the Secretary of State that the deprivation is compatible with the UK's obligations under international law.

Dr Hywel Francis MP, the Chair of JCHR, said: "The UK has historically been a champion of efforts to reduce statelessness throughout the world and it is disappointing to see this position shift in such a dramatic way. The new power will lead to an increase in the number of stateless people and exposes British citizens to the risk of being left stateless. As the Supreme Court recently said, statelessness is an "evil": it takes away the right to have rights. The power does not in itself put the UK in breach of any of its international obligations in relation to statelessness but it does pose the risk of breaching our international obligations to other states.

We are particularly concerned about the power being used when citizens are abroad. Parliament needs more information about how similar powers have been used in the recent past and assurances about how this power will be used in the future. Retrospectivity, the impact of this power on children and dependants, and the adequacy of safeguards against the possibly arbitrary use of this power are just some of the issues that we have raised in our Report and which the Government needs to address."

A JCHR press release highlighted that in the report the Committee:

• expresses surprise at the Government's refusal to inform Parliament of the number of cases in which the existing power to deprive of citizenship has been exercised while the UK citizen is abroad, or of the number of cases in which the Secretary of State's decision was taken wholly or partly in reliance on information which in the Secretary of State's view should not be made public. Parliament is entitled to know this information in order to assist it to reach a view as to how the new power is likely to be exercised in practice;

• considers that there was time to hold a public consultation on the controversial new power in clause 60 which would have made for better informed parliamentary scrutiny of the Government's proposal;

• is not persuaded that there are sufficiently weighty reasons to justify the new power being made retrospective, and recommends that the Bill be amended so as to prevent it having retrospective effect; and

• is concerned about the impact of the new power on children and recommends an amendment to the Bill which requires the Secretary of State to take into account the best interests of any child affected when deciding whether to make a deprivation order under the new power.

The report also returns to some of the issues set out in the JCHR's first Report on the Immigration Bill. In the context of the first Report, JCHR:

• recommends amendments to reflect the Government's stated intention that family members will always be notified if they are facing removal;

• recommends that the removal of appeal rights for which the Bill provides should not be brought into force until Parliament is satisfied that the quality of first instance decision-making has improved sufficiently, to remove the risk that meritorious appeals will be prevented from being brought;

• recommends that the Bill be amended by removing the condition of the Secretary of State's consent for the consideration of "new matters" and instead leaving it to the Upper Tier Tribunal to decide the legal question of the scope of its own jurisdiction;

• recommends that legal aid be available for out of country human rights appeals against deportation on the grounds that it is in breach of the right to respect for private and family life;

• recommends that the Bill be amended to remove any scope for doubt about the effect of the Bill on the s. 55 children duty, by requiring the best interests of the child to be taken into account as a primary consideration;

• welcomes the Government's indication that the Secretary of State, when exercising residual discretion to grant permission to occupy premises under a residential tenancy agreement, will take into account the best interests of any child involved; and

• recommends that new guidance is issued, both on the s. 55 children duty, explaining clearly to front-line decision-makers exactly how that statutory duty applies in relation to functions conferred by or by virtue of this Bill, and on the s. 11 Children Act duty, explaining to front-line decision-makers in the health sector exactly how that duty applies in the context of extended charging for NHS services.