British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hay of Ballyore, for the clarity of his explanation of this short but very important Bill, which has at its heart a simple but long-standing and unresolved issue, and for his long-standing campaign on this. The issue is that, notwithstanding the commitments made by the UK and Irish Governments in the Good Friday agreement more than 25 years ago, there are still outstanding questions about eligibility and access to citizenship for many people in Northern Ireland. My understanding is that attempts have been made to resolve this before, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hay, including by a previous Private Member’s Bill in 2005, and I note that, in 2021, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee produced a short report that concluded:

“The Government should abolish the naturalisation fee charged to Irish applicants who wish to naturalise as British citizens”.


Understandably, there has been great strength of feeling about the fact that there is such a significant contrast between the arrangements for people born in Northern Ireland, who are entitled to Irish citizenship at birth and need only pay the usual fee for an Irish passport, and those born in the Republic of Ireland after 31 December 1948, who must go through the process of satisfying residency requirements, passing a Life in the UK test, proving language skills and paying a fee—which I think is now £1,630.

We believe it is time that this long-standing anomaly was resolved, so we will certainly support the Bill today. Why has such heavy weather has been made of this, and why it has taken so long to get this through? We note that the Bill was amended with cross-party support in the House of Commons, and we welcome the amendments, moved by Gavin Robinson and accepted by the Minister in the other place, that broaden the scope of the Bill to cover “Irish citizens” rather than “persons born in Ireland” and change the absence requirement, as well as changing the title of the Bill to reflect the new provisions.

As all noble Lords have mentioned, the question of fees is still outstanding, and as my honourable friend Stephen Kinnock pointed out in the other place, it would really help the House if we could have some confirmation of

“what criteria will be used in setting the level of application fees under the new system”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/1/24; col. 561.]

It has been argued that there should be parity, and there should be nothing to pay other than the current cost of a British passport. I hope the Minister will be able to give us some more information about the Government’s proposals in that regard.

I believe it was confirmed by the Minister in the other place that the Life in the UK test would not apply to applicants, but the Minister for Security indicated that perhaps a citizenship ceremony might be a requirement. Can the Minister clarify what is being proposed in relation to these two elements? In my view, retention of either would mean there is still a difference between the processes of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Although I come from a town in the south of England, it is fair to say we have incredibly strong connections with Ireland. As my town was built largely in the 1950s and 60s, there was a very significant community of Irish settlers and pioneers, who came to build the town and work in its industries. Our first Irish mayor, Mick Cotter, who later became a freeman of the borough, was one of those who came to build our town, but who also gave us the true legacy of a strong sense of community that blesses us to this day. The Irish Network Stevenage is one of our strongest community groups to this day, with over 1,000 members. When I was reading the background to the Bill, it reminded me of the fabulous service the network gives in helping people with their Irish citizenship. If members are listening today, I hope they will feel that we are at last doing the right thing here today—I will be in real trouble if we are not.

It is time the promises made 25 years ago were kept and this anomalous situation put right once and for all. I thank all those who have worked on and supported this Bill on its passage through both Houses, and all those who have spoken today.

Police Uplift Programme

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. I am sorry if I seemed to evade the question. The simple fact of the matter is that I cannot comment on the strategy because I have not seen it, it is due to be published this week, and it will address all the various questions that the noble Lord has asked me—in other words, I do not know.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard from my noble friend Lady Lawrence, even with the police uplift programme, there is still a shortage of over 9,000 police officers. As well as the decimation of neighbourhood policing that that has caused, many of the officers lost in earlier rounds of cuts will have been among the most experienced and highly trained; for example, officers trained in specialist intelligence, firearms and dealing with sexual offences. This has put immense pressure on those left behind to hold the fort and may explain, for example, why only 1% of rape offences reach a conviction. What assessment have the Government carried out of the impact of this loss of experience, and how long will it take to build back up so that the specialist officer posts can be filled?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right to talk about specialist skills and experience. I do not recognise the 9,000 number: as I have said repeatedly this afternoon, we have record numbers of police. I am afraid I cannot answer, as with the question that the noble Lord, Lord German, asked, about age distribution and so on. I can say that certain specific programmes, such the one I referenced earlier, Operation Soteria, are delivering very strong results. The necessary people are being trained in the right way in dealing with some of the things that are of significant public concern.

Police Conduct and David Carrick

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble and gallant Lord makes some extremely good points, if I may say so. They echo some of the points from the noble Lord, Lord Dear, a couple of months ago when I was answering a Question, which piqued my interest. He raised the subject of the closure of the Bramshill police college, which trained police officers for senior leadership and ensured a degree of consistency across forces. As a consequence of that Question, which was asked of me a couple of months ago, I had a chat about this issue with Andy Marsh at the College of Policing, where a leadership academy is being established. Progress is not particularly fast at the moment—there are all sorts of reasons for that—but conversations will be ongoing because it has certainly piqued my interest. I have the Policing Minister’s agreement to continue to pursue this particular subject.

On the Metropolitan Police specifically, Sir Mark Rowley is setting up a leadership academy. The noble and gallant Lord raised the subject of degrees and what have you; I think that there is a problem with the consistency of delivery of degree services across police forces. It is certainly true that there is a problem of consistency of leadership across police forces. The noble and gallant Lord also hinted at an interesting point, towards the end of his question, about the types of officer that are now recruited. Obviously, the skills required to break up a fight in a pub and those required to tackle online crime are very different. They really ought to provoke some serious thinking about who, how and why we recruit.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his points about the violence against women and girls strategy. The measure of that, of course, will be whether we stop losing 140 women a year at the hands of domestic abuse attackers.

Although PC Carrick was a Metropolitan Police officer, he lived in my hometown of Stevenage. I express my great thanks to Hertfordshire Constabulary for the very thorough investigation that it carried out into this issue. I join noble Lords in expressing my shock at the disgraceful and troubling revelations regarding this case and others. I worked in policing for many years. I feel deeply for the thousands of officers out there who do amazing things in our communities every day and who will feel so badly let down by the appalling conduct of PC Carrick and the other cases that we have heard about. They have damaged the trust and confidence of the communities that our good officers serve.

With the Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, saying that he has a further 800 officers suspended or on limited duties because they are under investigation for serious misconduct, what reassurance can the Minister give about the liaison between the Metropolitan Police and the surrounding areas and forces where these potential offenders may live?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I echo the noble Baroness’s comments about the vast majority of serving officers who do such a fantastic job, whom I have already referenced. As the noble Baroness says, their work is undermined by situations such as this. As regards liaison with the surrounding areas, I am afraid that I really do not have the answer to that question. I shall ask Sir Mark and see whether he is willing to say something in public on that subject.