Lord Dholakia, speaking in the House of Lords, listed the multitude of issues surrounding immigration and nationality law, from the Windrush settlers to the treatment of detainees at immigration centers, as he urged the Government to prioritize new legislation to redress the wrongs. Challenging the Minster, Baroness Williams of Trafford, Lord Dholakia queried why great wealth can buy British citizenship, as a draft remedial Order altering the British Nationality Act 1981, was debated prior to approving.
Welcoming the Government’s belated efforts to ensure the citizenship legislation in the Act is compatible with the Human Rights Act, Lord Dholakia declared, “[t]here are no ifs or buts in this matter: it has taken 28 years to recognize this anomaly and the sooner it is put right the better”. Noting how “deeply entrenched has been the Home Office in keeping people out of the United Kingdom”, Lord Dholakia stated, “previous policies lacked basic concern about the rights and values of peoples wishing to settle here”. Questioning how the sorry state of affairs came to pass, he declared, “[c]common sense would have told the Government that [the citizens involved] were entitled to the incompatibilities being removed at the earliest opportunity”.
One of the main concerns involves the status of children of British Overseas Territories [BOT] descent whose parents were not married. These children, “remain shunned and left out in the cold, preventing them being officially embraced by their unmarried BOT fathers’ homelands”. Underlining his concerns, Lord Dholakia explained, “[i]t is plainly wrong and should never have been allowed to happen in the first place”. “This order”, Lord Dholakia continued, “gives us the opportunity to bring forward sooner rather than later legislation that would remedy the deep hurt and sense of rejection felt by the affected children, who are now adults”. “It is”, he stressed, “unacceptable that discrimination in acquiring British nationality persists”.
Accepting that the Order is not the place to remedy some of the problems that persist, Lord Dholakia stressed the need to sort out the tangle of law. Putting forward a solution, Lord Dholakia emphasized “we should also use this opportunity to consolidate all immigration and nationality issues and proof these against anti-discrimination legislation”. Further, Lord Dholakia also raised the good character requirement when seeking British nationality. Noting that it applies to those aged over 10, Lord Dholakia asked “[i]s the Minister aware that my Private Member’s Bill on this matter has gone through all stages in your Lordships ‘House and will be dealt with by Wera Hobhouse MP in the other place?” “No one would wish to ignore some heinous crimes,” he stressed, “but great care must be taken to look at the proportionality of the crime and its impact, so that applicants are less likely to meet the threshold for refusal of citizenship”.
Finishing off, Lord Dholakia returned to his point on disparity of wealth and the ability to become a British citizen. “ the size of the fees can mean that a family is able to pay for one child but not stretch to the other”, Lord Dholakia stated. Ending forcefully, Lord Dholakia asked the Minister, “does she accept that citizenship is not something to be granted on a discretionary basis but an entitlement when all the conditions are met?”
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