Refugee Citizenship Rights

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance again this afternoon, Ms Butler, and a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), who made a stunning and impressive speech on a matter he clearly cares about, as do I. I draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, for the support I get from the Refugee, Asylum, Migration and Policy Project for a part-time member of staff in my office. I take that support because I care passionately about this issue.

To give the Government some credit, in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, they are repealing the legislative ban imposed by the previous Government on people applying for and gaining citizenship if they arrived irregularly. I commend the use of the word “irregular” rather than “illegal”. No one is an illegal asylum seeker; they have a right to do it.

Although I commend the Government for that, that is as far as I can get. The guidance mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, which was issued in February, creates a situation where we change the good character requirement, so that someone who arrives here irregularly

“will typically be refused citizenship regardless of the time elapsed since entry.”

That is wrong; the guidance contains no clear exception for refugees, stateless persons, victims of trafficking or children. It applies retrospectively, to people who arrived in the United Kingdom before the change was introduced. The Government say that people can apply for citizenship; indeed, they are encouraged to test to see whether the policy applies to them. However, for a family of four there is a non-refundable charge of £5,898 for that test—a rather expensive, cruel and prohibitive one.

I can think of one man I met in Barrow not long ago who was being processed—he had been an interpreter for UK and US forces in Afghanistan. We had left him behind. He found his way, by hook or by crook and through appalling personal experiences, to this country by an irregular route. He would not be allowed now: he would not get through. He could test whether the rules or guidance applied to him, but it is extremely unlikely that it would. He would be left outside.

I can think of so many other people, as other hon. Members could as well, whose lives will be affected by this deeply and unjustly. It is not a deterrent, either. The possibility of being denied citizenship and maintained on indefinite leave to remain is hardly a calculation that a 17-year-old young man in Eritrea makes when deciding to flee in the middle of the night, knowing that within the next 48 hours he will otherwise be conscripted to murder his own people. That is not the kind of calculation anyone would make—it is a far-off, future consideration. It will not be any kind of deterrent, but instead will simply be a penalty based on the means by which someone got here.

There would be a case for this—maybe, just maybe—if the Government allowed safe routes for these people, but in real terms there are no safe routes for people from Iran, Eritrea or Sudan. People will do dangerous things in order to escape despicable, awful experiences. I would say that competence is the best deterrent. I commend this Government for doing better than their predecessor when it comes to removing people who have not been successful through the asylum process, but the people we are talking about here have been successful. This Government have decided that they are refugees, so why are we denying them the ability to settle here as full citizens?

This is all part of, and a consequence of, an awful, toxic debate. It feels like this Government are not the generators of that toxicity, but are scared of it, and cannot stand up to those who would demonise people who have fled from persecution, in fear of their lives. We know that 85% of refugees stay in the place next door to the one from which they fled. We know that, if we were to be put back into the European Union—if we were, we would be able to control our borders a whole lot better—we would be the 17th out of 28 in the league table of countries taking refugees.

It is a dishonest debate we are having nationally, and in this place we should be honest. We should not be scared of being vaguely humane and decent. This guidance works against integration and creates a divided society. Encouraging citizenship is a good thing, because it creates stability, a sense of belonging and inclusion. It offers hope to those who come to us for sanctuary. It is a decent thing for us to do—we should do it. This guidance should be scrapped.