Refugee Citizenship Rights

Debate between Pete Wishart and Brian Leishman

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

I beg to move.

That this House has considered refugee citizenship rights.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. Refugees should not be reduced to statistics. After all, refugees are human beings, and every human being deserves to be treated with dignity, respect and compassion, and with empathy for their vulnerability and their need for safety. How we treat each other is a basic measurement of us as people and of the kind of society that we live in. Every day we see prejudice, oppression and war. It would be easy to consider those issues as mere news items, but they demand a co-ordinated international response of co-operation based on humanity, social inclusion and integration.

On 10 February, the Home Office introduced significant amendments to the good character requirement guidance for British citizenship, which will have profound and lasting impacts on thousands of people who are already here in the UK and have been granted protection status following a well-founded fear of persecution or violence. They will likely be denied citizenship just because of the way in which they came to the UK, and that will include people who travelled by small boat or in other ways. We should bear in mind that those are people who have made their new home and life here, and they have been working and contributing to our economy and culture. The change was made in the back of a document, without any significant parliamentary scrutiny, and today’s debate, over five months later, will be the first time that it has been substantively discussed in this place. Given that we are elected officials and legislators, that is simply not good enough.

Under the policy, anyone who arrived in the UK via a dangerous journey or entered irregularly will normally be refused British citizenship. It will not matter how long they have lived here or how they have integrated into our society. Although there may be exceptional situations in which applications are approved, the Government have not provided clarity on how that discretion will be applied. It is understood that most applications will be rejected. Will the Minister provide clarity on how discretion will be applied?

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making good and valid points. He is not entirely right, as I tabled a series of amendments on this very issue in Committee on the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which were supported by the Liberals, of course. I am grateful that he has been able to bring the issue to Westminster Hall today, but the situation is worse than he says. With a lack of safe and legal routes to access the UK, migrants have no other option but to arrive irregularly, such as in the small boats that the hon. Gentleman describes. What is happening as a result of these measures is a disenfranchisement of practically everybody who comes to the UK. Surely he agrees that cannot ever be right.

[Brian Leishman]

The hon. Gentleman is a champion on this topic, and his parliamentary record stands up there with the very best—although I did not vote for him to be my MP. I thank him very much for his contribution, and I agree with him.

It looks as though refugees will have to argue for an exemption to the blanket denial of citizenship. It would make for much fairer and effective policy if all cases were treated on a case-by-case basis, rather than a blanket ban being introduced, and I would appreciate it if the Minister could also address that point in her response.

I want to talk about people’s personal experiences of the policy, and I acknowledge the Scottish Refugee Council and Together with Refugees for supplying case studies for the debate. Sabir Zazai, the chief executive officer of the Scottish Refugee Council, would not be eligible for citizenship if he were applying now. Sabir has three honorary doctorates and an OBE; it is difficult to imagine a more compelling example of integration. But because he arrived here in the back of a lorry from Afghanistan, this Government would exclude him from ever being a British citizen.

The policy does not discriminate between refugees, victims of trafficking and children. It does not consider the unique vulnerabilities and complex backgrounds of people seeking protection, many of whom have fled circumstances that we could only imagine. For example, Gulan, a refugee from Iraq, shared how she escaped torture with her young children, risking death to survive. Despite years of integration and contributing to her local community, she feels like this policy makes her a second-class member of society.