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UK Borders Bill

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman had the chance to make that point. I missed him at the beginning of the debate; I looked around for him anxiously, and I am pleased that he has had the chance to intervene. The point that I make to him is that the application of the provisions is very wide. They apply to all foreign nationals who live in this country, and there may be some 3.4 million of them living here at any one time. That includes everybody who is granted indefinite leave to remain. The provisions could also apply to people born in this country to non-British parents after 1981, because they may not qualify automatically for British citizenship and may not have secured that privilege. It is quite possible for someone to have grown up in this country—to have come to this country for two or three weeks, but to have spent all their childhood and adult life here—and to be still subject to the automatic deportation provisions in the Bill. I want to avoid a situation in which someone who has spent all their life here and who is convicted and sentenced for something quite minor—such as the proverbial charge of council tax non-payment—is deported to a country that they have not been to in their living memory.