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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

On these Benches we are sympathetic in many ways to the principle of active citizenship. Indeed, it is precisely the sort of thing that this House should consider having a session in Committee on to get some all-party discussion about how to get the concept of active citizenship operational. I agree strongly with my noble friend Lady Falkner that we have to be as much concerned about how to give our native young people a sense of participation in the community as about those who wish to come into our community from elsewhere. So part of our concern is that this is a sideways slide into a very large national issue which we all need to address. We are, of course, concerned about the bureaucratic controls and the implementation. Many of the voluntary organisations with which some of us have worked are faith-based—churches, temples or mosques—and that raises some quite delicate questions about integration and how these things operate for Christian, Muslim, Hindu and other organisations. So there are many snags on the road to a praiseworthy intention. That is why we wish to see a great deal more of the detail before we accept this principle.