Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am very pleased that the hon. Member raises that issue, and I am happy to look at the detail of what he has seen in his constituency. Let me assure him that there is a lot of work happening with retailers, and I know that different platforms are being adopted. The pace of technological innovation in this area is very quick indeed, and we will do everything we can to make sure all these systems are joined up and that the police are in the best possible position to go after the criminals as quickly as possible.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

14. What steps she is taking to help ensure in-person access to police services.

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

This Government are restoring neighbourhood policing with nearly 2,400 additional neighbourhood officers in post since last September, and we are ensuring that every community has named contactable officers dedicated to tackling the issues it faces. Of course, the provision of in-person services, such as front counters, is a matter for local police forces to decide, but I want the police out on our streets catching criminals.

[Lisa Smart]

The community of Woodley in my Hazel Grove constituency has been plagued by shoplifting on the precinct. We have had far too much antisocial behaviour and recently we have had some really worrying violent incidents as well. Bredbury police station was closed by the mayor a few years ago, but we know many people want to access police services in person for all sorts of accessibility reasons and because it is much more reassuring to have such conversations in person. The police also tell us that they can pick up on things in person that they just cannot when they receive an online form. We Lib Dems have a plan for a police counter in every community, in places such as supermarkets where people already are. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that those in communities such as Woodley can access police services in person?

Police Reform White Paper

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

It will be for the review to recommend what the new structure of the regional forces should look like, but let me pay tribute to the work of Greater Manchester police and the chief constable in particular. Greater Manchester is a very good example of a large force that is not burdened by significant national services. It is therefore able to concentrate on policing its local communities, and to do so very effectively. [Interruption.] The shadow Home Secretary chunters from a sedentary position, but he could do with learning a few lessons from Greater Manchester.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

In Greater Manchester we love a bit of drama. We have the longest-running soap opera in the world—“Coronation Street”—we have some nail-biting derby matches, and over the weekend there was some pretty high-octane speculation about whether the current person responsible for policing in the city region might be allowed to apply for another job. Where we do not want more drama, though, is in policing our communities. Could the Home Secretary share her thinking about how to preserve what works well in Greater Manchester—where the police force is coterminous with the mayoral authority and the 10 local authorities within it, enabling good, strong partnership working—so that my Hazel Grove constituents get the policing they deserve?

[Shabana Mahmood]

Let me reassure the hon. Lady that I am very much “No Drama Shabana”. I have already paid fulsome tribute to Greater Manchester police, and I think some excellent work is taking place in that part of the world. I am sure that the reviewer, once appointed, will take into account good examples of local policing within a larger force structure, and I am sure there are many lessons to learn from Manchester.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Many of those who come to this country by crossing the channel go on to be granted refugee status. Earlier this month, the Government backtracked on their promise to continue with the 56-day move-on period for those granted refugee status, barely weeks after a Home Office Minister assured this House that the policy would last until the end of the year. The move-on period extension was working, in that it was giving refugees time to secure work and housing while shielding local councils from sudden surges in homelessness caused by people being forced out of asylum accommodation too quickly. Halving the move-on period is worse for refugees who want to support themselves, worse for the communities supporting them until they can get on their feet and certainly worse for already stretched council budgets. Does the Home Secretary agree that it is better to do what works, both for refugees and for communities welcoming them, and will she look again at reinstating a policy that worked, rather than chasing headlines?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I say to the hon. Lady that we are following what is working. Rather than having an arbitrary time period, we are working with local authorities to make sure we have the appropriate move-on period. It is in nobody’s interest that people remain in hotels for longer than is absolutely necessary, and of course this Government will end the use of asylum hotels.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

This weekend, as the Home Secretary said, Elon Musk used a rally to call—alongside convicted criminal, so-called Tommy Robinson—for the Dissolution of Parliament, and to incite violence on our streets. Given the seriousness of a high-profile figure apparently urging attacks on our democracy, what assessment has the Home Office made of these statements, and what steps are being taken across Government to respond to them, and to protect our democracy?

[Shabana Mahmood]

There is both a legal question here and a political question. On the legal question, in all cases, including the one that the hon. Lady raises, it is for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to decide independently whether the law has been broken and charges should be brought. We would never expect a Minister to comment on that; it would be improper to do so. On the political question, let me say this: the words that were used at the weekend are abhorrent, and I know that the vast majority of people in this country will feel the same way. Whether you are a hostile state or a hostile foreign billionaire, no one gets to mess with British democracy.

Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

The right to peaceful protest is a cornerstone of a liberal democracy, but events over the weekend have set a dangerous precedent and risk having a chilling impact on free speech and legitimate protest in the UK. The arrest of 857 protesters under terror laws, following hundreds of arrests under the same powers last month, is deeply alarming. The Lib Dems warned that that would be exactly what happened when the Conservatives expanded terrorism powers in 2018. There is no doubt that those using violence, antisemitic abuse or hate speech must face the consequences, but those crimes are already covered by existing law. It cannot be right that simply displaying a placard in support of a proscribed organisation, while peacefully protesting, can result in a conviction and up to six months in prison. Will the Minister urgently review terrorism legislation, specifically as it is impacting the right to protest peacefully, to ensure it is proportionate and contains the nuance that it so clearly needs?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, as always, for the sensible and reasonable tone in which she makes her remarks, but I have to say that I do not agree that the events of this weekend have had a chilling effect on our democracy. I think it is quite the opposite: tens of thousands of people came to London to exercise their absolute right to demonstrate on matters about which they are concerned. The overwhelming majority of people who came to London were able to do so in an entirely reasonable and lawful way. Only a very tiny minority were not able to do so in that way and deliberately sought to get arrested.

The hon. Lady asks entirely reasonably about necessity and proportionality, and about whether the Government intend to review existing legislation. She has raised that point previously, we have discussed it, and I know that the leader of her party, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), raised it over the summer recess. Of course we look very carefully at legislation, but the Government do not currently have any plans to amend the existing legislation. Not least in the light of the ongoing criminal proceedings relating to Palestine Action and the ongoing judicial review, it would not be appropriate to carry out a review at this time.

We think that the UK’s counter-terrorism legislation strikes the right balance between protecting national security and individual freedoms, including the right to the freedom of expression under article 10 of the European convention on human rights. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove knows the high regard in which I hold Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and she knows that the legislative framework is subject to independent statutory oversight by the independent reviewer. The Government will of course consider any recommendations that he seeks to make. I have advised the hon. Lady previously to get in touch with him; I think that she has and I know that she will want to look very carefully at what he says.

Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful as always to the Minister for advance sight of her statement. In every single conversation about this issue in this House, our first thought must always be with the victims and the survivors. No child should ever suffer the devastating trauma of sexual exploitation or abuse. These crimes are abhorrent and an assault on the very values of our society. We carry a responsibility to act, to secure justice for victims, to ensure that offenders answer for their crimes and to build a future in which such suffering is not repeated.

In 2022, Professor Alexis Jay published her independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. In June, Baroness Casey released her report on group-based exploitation. I am really grateful to the Minister for her update on the progress being made, but when does she expect to have implemented the crucial recommendations from both reports?

Baroness Casey was clear about one of her key recommendations: the Government must end the practice of out-of-area taxis by introducing stronger national standards for taxi licensing and driver regulation. Across Greater Manchester, we know that problem all too well; for years, drivers have exploited the fragmented system by securing the easiest licences to obtain from councils in one area and then operating elsewhere. As a result, many taxis working in Greater Manchester are licensed 100 miles away in Wolverhampton. What work is the Minister doing to address that specific issue? It feels like there is an opportunity to do so this afternoon through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, but that opportunity has not yet been taken. If an amendment to the Bill is the way to achieve that aim, will the Minister work with colleagues across the House to ensure that this important recommendation from Baroness Casey can be delivered?

Finally, I turn to an issue that I and others have raised repeatedly, and on which some progress was hinted at in recent press reports. Could the Minister confirm when Parliament will see legislation for a Hillsborough law, as promised many times by the Government, to guarantee that public officials and authorities co-operate fully with a duty of candour in cases such as this one, including in the upcoming national inquiry?

[Jess Phillips]

I met the Department for Transport on the issue of taxi licensing last week—this is about looking for a legislative vehicle. The Government have said that we will undo some of the harm caused by the deregulation legislation of the past, including the dangers that have come about related to safeguarding and taxi licensing. The hon. Lady invited Members to work across the House. In every interaction—there have been many—that I have had with victims of this crime since the last time I or the Home Secretary stood at the Dispatch Box making a statement, they have asked if we could just work together and stop throwing mud at each other. I will happily work with anyone on this issue. We are currently looking for legislative vehicles, but we do seek to legislate.

We expect the Hillsborough law shortly; I am sorry that that is not a very prescriptive answer, but that law is very much expected.

Borders and Asylum

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary, as always, for advance sight of her statement.

Anyone with any sense knows that the Conservatives trashed our asylum system and left the backlog spiralling out of control, with applications for asylum routinely taking years to process. Some of the Home Secretary’s remarks are welcome, but I worry that this Government risk repeating some of the same mistakes.

The Liberal Democrats will closely scrutinise the plan that the Home Secretary has talked about today, but given that the Home Office itself says that one of the reasons that those human beings seeking asylum make dangerous small-boat crossings is the lack of safe, alternative family reunion routes, cutting those back further seems counterproductive, especially when more than half of those granted family reunion visas in the year ending June 2025 were children under 18.

It is right that the Government have increased the rate of decisions made—those with no right to be here should be sent back swiftly, and those who have a valid claim should be able to settle, work, integrate and contribute to our communities. The backlog is still too large, however, and initial application decisions still take too long. As the Home Secretary stated, a significant share of the backlog comes from appeals. According to the Government’s own figures, in 2024 almost half of rejected asylum applications were overturned on appeal. For applicants from high-grant countries, that proportion was even higher. I would welcome clarity from the Home Secretary on how long it is currently taking to process the average asylum application, and on what concrete steps are being taken to ensure not only that cases are processed more swiftly, but that decisions are right the first time, so that applicants are not left in limbo, the courts are not overburdened and taxpayers are not footing the bill for avoidable delays.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s encouraging comments about the reciprocal agreement with France. Can she confirm whether the Government plan for that to be scaled up and, if so, when? Given that one of the main drivers of dangerous channel crossings is the absence of safe, legal family reunion routes, does the Home Secretary agree that cutting family reunion rules risks making the small-boat crisis worse, not better?

The Home Secretary rightly also mentioned the impact on local authorities. When individuals leave hotels, many present as homeless, creating an unsustainable burden on councils, including my own. Will the Home Secretary explain how she is working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to support councils and ensure that this crisis is not simply shifted from one overstretched system to another?

In recent weeks, constituents have been in touch with me as they are concerned about the number of flags that have gone up on lampposts around our area. They worry that the flags have been put up by those who seek to divide our community, not bring it together. Patriotism is a good thing. We should be proud of our country. We should be proud that our country welcomed people such as my nan in the 1930s, when she was fleeing the Nazis. We should be proud of our record of doing our bit. We should be proud of the British values I see in action across my community every day.

I am proud of those police officers who kept everyone safe during the protests at two hotels in my constituency over the summer; proud of those teachers and pupils who welcome new classmates when they have been placed in one of the hotels; and really proud of those who volunteer their time to support new arrivals, whether through local churches or other voluntary groups and charities—because that is what patriotism looks like.

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks and questions. At the heart of the France pilot that we have developed is the principle that those who arrive on dangerous and illegal small boats should be returned, but alongside that we should also have a legal route for those who apply and who go through proper security checks. As part of that, we will seek to prioritise people who have a connection to the UK, such as family groups —people who have family connections to the UK. Families will continue to need to be an underpinning part of the approach. The House will recall that the Ukraine family scheme was an important part of the response to the situation in Ukraine, for which Labour called in opposition.

The family reunion arrangements are being used differently from how they were used five years ago. The number of people applying for family reunion immediately —before they have a job, a house or any way of being able to support their families—is increasing the homelessness pressures on local authorities at a time when we need them not just to do their bit to help to clear hotels, but, crucially, to provide homelessness support in the local community. It is important to ensure that arrangements for the families of refugees do not put additional pressure on the homelessness support system, so we will set out reforms and ensure that, in the interim, refugees are included in the existing arrangements that apply to all sponsors in the UK for family reunion.

We need to speed up appeals. The average appeal time is now 54 weeks, which is far too long. Some appeals go on for way longer, meaning people with repeat appeals are in asylum accommodation for years, preventing the closure of asylum hotels that needs to take place, which is why we need the reforms.

Finally, the hon. Lady raised the issue of flags. I strongly support the flying of flags across the country—we fly the St George’s flag in Pontefract castle each year. As she will know, the Union flag is on the Labour party membership card—[Interruption.] I can show her a copy if she has not seen one. Flags should be an embodiment of bringing our country together—that will be the same in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—and a way to bring our country together through symbolism.

UK-France Migration: Co-operation

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement.

We all want to stop these dangerous channel crossings, which first ballooned under the former Conservative Government. Cross-border co-operation will be key to achieving that, and clearly a lot of work is needed after the Conservatives ripped up the returns agreement that allowed us to send irregular migrants back to Europe. I was very interested to hear the shadow Home Secretary quote President Macron, but he was a little selective in doing so—he did not mention the section of President Macron’s remarks that attributed the problem to the Brexit deal that the last Conservative Government cooked up.

This deal is a step in the right direction, and I sincerely hope that it works, but people will understandably be sceptical that such a small scheme will act as an effective deterrent at this stage. Questions still need to be answered about how and when the UK and French Governments will decide to scale up the pilot, so I would welcome more details from the Home Secretary.

Of course, deals like this are only part of the solution. The Home Secretary mentioned placing officers within Europol, but will she commit to negotiating a stronger leadership role for the UK in Europol, to make it easier to crack down on the trafficking gangs behind these crossings? Does she acknowledge that we will not be able to fully take the power out of the hands of the gangs until we provide regulated entry to the UK for genuine refugees?

One of the best deterrents to put people off the idea of coming here in the first place is for all asylum applications to be processed quickly, so that those who are granted refugee status can integrate and contribute to our community, and for those with no right to be here to be sent back swiftly. Can the Home Secretary update the House on the average time it takes to process an asylum application after arrival on British shores, and how has that changed over the past year? Until the Government act on these points, I fear that they risk repeating the Conservatives’ mistakes and failing to get to grips with the problem, which is something we all want them to do.

[Yvette Cooper]

The Prime Minister and the French President set out their expectation that we will be able to operationalise this agreement and begin the pilot in the coming weeks. The numbers will vary, and it is a pilot that will need to be developed. We will need to trial different approaches as part of it, and that is the right and sensible approach.

The principle underpinning the agreement is the right one: we should return people who have paid money to criminal gangs in order to come on this dangerous journey in small boats—which puts other people’s lives at risk, as well as their own, and undermines our border security—in exchange for taking people who apply legally, who are more likely to be genuine refugees and who have been through security checks, and prioritising people who have a connection to the UK. It is also a way to help undermine the business model of the criminal gangs, who tell people that there is no way to be returned to France or any other country if they get into one of these dangerous small boats. They use that as part of their advertising, which we should seek to undermine.

The hon. Lady is right to say that we also need stronger law enforcement. We have already been building stronger co-operation, including by setting up the new prosecution and investigation unit in Dunkirk, which will work with our National Crime Agency and our Border Security Command, and we are significantly speeding up asylum decision making to bring the backlog down. We also need action to speed up the appeals process, because there are delays as a result of the broken system that we inherited.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

The best community policing is embedded within communities, responding to their needs. Whether it is attacks on Jewish-owned businesses or hateful chants at music festivals, there are too many sobering reminders of the reality of the antisemitism that too many within the Jewish community across the UK are facing right now. Home Office figures have shown that religious hate crimes are at record highs, and that the number of hate crimes specifically targeting Jewish people has more than doubled. Everyone deserves to feel safe in our society, and that must include British Jewish communities, so what steps is the Home Secretary taking to ensure that police have the training and resources needed to effectively tackle antisemitic hate crimes, while supporting survivors?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right to highlight the appalling increase in antisemitism, antisemitic hate crime and assaults that took place after the events in the middle east. She will know that, in order to tackle antisemitism, we and the police work very closely with the Community Security Trust and we are introducing new measures to deal with intimidating protests outside synagogues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Enabling new refugees to prepare properly for life in the UK will be key to reducing the need for asylum accommodation. In my constituency we have seen the extension of the move-on period not only giving new refugees much-needed time to make those preparations, but protecting other public bodies such as the local authority from being left to pick up the costs. We welcomed the news last December of the Government’s decision to trial a longer move-on period for six months, but those six months have now come and gone, and despite numerous requests for an answer, the Government have provided no certainty on whether the trial will be extended. Can the Minister provide clarity today?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

As it happens, I can. We have extended the move-on trial until the end of the year.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Lisa Smart Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for taking the time to discuss this issue with me.

As has been mentioned, there are three organisations listed today, and the order before us is unamendable. Taking each of the three organisations in turn, the Russian Imperial Movement is an ultranationalist and white supremacist militant organisation operating from inside Russia. The group has been proscribed by both the United States and Canada, and even the Russian Government have blacklisted many of the group’s publications and activities. The rationale and justification for proscription is clear, and we are content to support it.

The Maniacs Murder Cult is similarly destructive, driven by a belief that society must be violently destabilised so that a new neo-Nazi or white supremacist order can rise from its ashes. It promotes random acts of violence including murder, assaults and bombings as a deliberate tactic to instil fear and chaos. The rationale and justification for proscription is clear, and we are content to support it.

The questions for many Members today relate to Palestine Action. On 20 June, as has been widely reported in the press, two members of Palestine Action gained unauthorised access to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, the UK’s largest airbase, circumventing perimeter security under cover of darkness. Once inside, they targeted two aircraft. Incidents involving members of Palestine Action include attacks at sites operated by Elbit Systems in Bristol in 2024 and again this year, as well as at a Thales UK facility in Glasgow in 2022. I note the Minister’s comments about cases currently going through the courts.

No matter how strongly any of us feels about the appalling humanitarian crisis in Gaza—and many of us across this House and across the country feel very strongly indeed—that does not justify attacks on military bases in Britain. Those responsible must face the full force of the law; there is no doubt about that. However, those laws already exist, and that is not what is in front of MPs today. The question we face is not whether or not these people have committed crimes, but whether someone who merely expresses support for them should face up to 14 years in jail. The bar for which groups should be proscribed as terrorist organisations is rightly set very high. It is crucial that the reasons for these decisions are transparent to maintain the public’s trust in our counter-terrorism framework.

I have listened carefully both to experts who have raised concerns, including those from the UN who were mentioned by the Mother of the House, and to what the Minister has said. I have also seen the Home Secretary’s words about her reasons for making this decision based on damage to property, notwithstanding the Minister’s comments on the use of violence. Proscribing an organisation solely on the grounds of serious damage to property would, I believe, be unprecedented. To date—I would welcome the Minister correcting me if I have got this wrong—no organisation has been proscribed in the UK exclusively for property damage, as is the case here, according to the Home Secretary’s words on the Government website.

While there may be compelling legal arguments that the actions of Palestine Action have met the legal definition of terrorism in terms of serious criminal damage, the decision to proscribe is ultimately made at the Home Secretary’s discretion. There are still questions as to whether that discretion is proportionate in this case, given the level of threat posed to the general public. I would welcome more details from the Minister on why he believes this is a proportionate response, as I remain to be convinced.

Currently the maximum custodial term for certain offences relating to membership of, or expressing support for, a proscribed terrorist organisation is 14 years. Yet in instances such as this, where actions, though criminal and damaging, may not pose the same imminent threat to life, a blanket application of such severe penalties risks being disproportionate. The Home Secretary rightly has substantial powers to take action to keep our country safe, but it is also right and entirely proper that we scrutinise the use of these powers and press the Government to ensure that any use of them is wholly proportionate.

Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill

Lisa Smart Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

The United Kingdom employs deprivation of citizenship orders more frequently than almost any other country in the world. While it is right, of course, that the Government should have the means to protect national security, both the current legislative framework and the Bill before us lack adequate provisions for transparency in and systematic oversight of when, why and how the Secretary of State exercises the power to deprive individuals of their citizenship.

The Bill is designed to ensure that if the Government take away someone’s British citizenship, that person stays deprived of that citizenship while any appeals against the decision are ongoing. In practical terms, if the Government deprive someone of their citizenship and that person appeals, the deprivation order remains in effect through the entire appeal period, meaning that even if that person wins an initial appeal, they will not get their citizenship back until all possible appeals from the Government—up to the highest courts—are finished, or the time limit for the Government to appeal has passed.

The Home Secretary has described the Bill as a necessary step to close a legal loophole—a description that has caused some debate already this evening. However, even if it is a loophole, that does not mean that these provisions deserve any less scrutiny. The power to deprive an individual of their citizenship is an exceptionally significant one, which in any democratic society should be exercised only in the most limited and extreme circumstances, and should be subject to rigorous oversight by Parliament.

We need to see proper reform of the whole citizenship deprivation process, not a piecemeal approach like we are seeing today. That principle has underpinned Lib Dem policy on the deprivation of citizenship since 2019, when it was most recently updated. At that time, our party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), set out clear and just principles that should govern its use: deprivation of citizenship should occur only in the most extreme circumstances, its use must never be political, and the legislation conferring this power must be used with transparency and should be the subject of continuous and meaningful parliamentary scrutiny.

The concerns about transparency have been echoed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, a cross-House and cross-party body. Earlier this year, it informed the Government that their current approach to the deprivation of citizenship falls short of the UK’s human rights obligations. The Committee called for significantly greater oversight of powers, including periodic independent reviews of their use and regular reports to Parliament.

The current regulations on the deprivation of citizenship already place far too much power in the hands of the Secretary of State. The requirement that the Home Secretary be

“satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good”

is too low a bar for the deprivation of citizenship. The Liberal Democrats would therefore confine the power to deprive naturalised citizens of citizenship only where their citizenship has been obtained through fraud, false representation or concealment of material fact, or where they have done something seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom and deprivation of citizenship is a proportionate response to such conduct and necessary for the national security of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, we are firmly of the view that no individual should be rendered stateless by the Government’s actions except in cases in which British citizenship was acquired by misrepresentation or fraud.

The powers conferred by the Bill will transfer even greater authority to the Secretary of State. It is therefore essential that those powers be subjected to ongoing rigorous scrutiny. I would welcome further details from the Minister about the plans to ensure such oversight. For example, will the Government consider reforming the deprivation of citizenship process to require the Secretary of State to apply to a court for permission to make a deprivation order, thereby obliging the Secretary of State to demonstrate that all the proper requirements have been met? Will they commit to publishing annual reports detailing the use of deprivation of citizenship powers, and to facilitating a review of the exercise of these powers by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation at least once every three years? Finally, will the Minister confirm whether the Government intend to ratify the 1997 European convention on nationality, thereby introducing an additional layer of international scrutiny of the UK’s use of these powers, particularly where there is a risk of rendering an individual stateless?

The power to deprive individuals of their citizenship engages fundamental rights and must be exercised with appropriate safeguards, transparency and oversight. Deprivation of citizenship must be the strict exception, never the norm. The Bill risks further concentrating excessive power in the hands of the Executive with too few safeguards to prevent error or abuse. The Liberal Democrats will continue to press for reforms that ensure transparency, judicial oversight and proper parliamentary scrutiny.