Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-10
Topic: Immigration
Alan Brooke (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I support both these amendments but will speak more particularly to Amendment 178 than to the one on Hong Kong, of which I have no experience This was all brought home to me when I was asked to present medals for one of the operational tours in Iraq. In presenting the medals to a regiment that had Commonwealth soldiers in it, I was giving a medal to somebody and saying, "Congratulations on what you have done for that country and on serving in the Army; you are one of our soldiers". Then I suddenly thought, "But you’re actually not one of our soldiers". We have two different types of soldier: people we consider British and people we consider other Commonwealth country soldiers. Where is the equality in that? We have soldiers, whether they are Commonwealth or British, who have suffered serious PTSD and serious health issues thereafter. While they are serving we treat them equally, but when they leave they are no longer equal. When one is severely injured—sadly, there were plenty of them—what happens to their family, who are not British? Maybe it is difficult for him to even apply for citizenship or whatever As part of my job as a lord-lieutenant, I was doing a citizenship ceremony. I am sorry to repeat this, but we raised this on the then Armed Forces Bill and did not get anywhere except for getting it shuffled to the Home Office. I hope that it will not fall down a gap and that we will not pass the buck again. I was giving out citizenship, where they have to swear allegiance—which, incidentally, they have already done in the military. This gentleman came up and I asked him, "What do you do?" We have everybody from Chinese people to Indonesians and Filipinos doing nursing and other valuable jobs. He said quietly, "Oh, you know, I have been here for a while". In Northern Ireland people do not shout about it if they are currently in the Army or anything else, so I asked, "Are you in the Army?". He said, "Yes, I am". I asked, "But you’re getting citizenship?" He said, "Yes, because I want it and I’ve paid the money to get it". I asked, "How many tours have you done?" He said, "I’ve done two of Afghanistan and one of Iraq" This is a two-tier, unequal thing. What we are doing is really unbelievable. I wonder what happens when somebody is killed. Are they a British person who is killed or just British Army? What statistics do they come under? We treat them like mercenaries. Personally, I believe it would take very little for the Government, instead of finding reasons why it is difficult—I do not know who they are consulting in the MoD, because I do not know a single serviceperson who would not think that they should automatically be citizens of our country—simply to make the presumption that they will be citizens, unless there is some impediment or reason why they cannot be We are engaged in almost racism or racial discrimination. We are engaged in inequality. What do all our Governments, of whichever colour, try to do? We raise everybody to make them equal and yet we ask these people to lay down their lives. We are saying, at the end of the day and the end of their service, "Sorry—you are not equal". The numbers concerned are beyond the belief of most people in this country, certainly of everybody in this Committee and in another place. Quite simply, there should be a pen put through it so they all become citizens, with exactly the same rights as those who laid down their lives with them.