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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

I will not detain the House long, but we have an opportunity, which the House will probably not have again for some years, to right a wrong, provide parity of treatment for people who are Irish, whether they deem themselves to be from Ulster—in which there are nine counties, not only six—or elsewhere and allow them to identify with their Britishness. Why do I say "parity of treatment"? Ever since the concept of Irish citizenship was realised, it has been possible for people born in Northern Ireland to decide to take up Irish citizenship and have an Irish passport, or opt for United Kingdom citizenship. Increasingly, many opt for both. It is a matter of where they feel most comfortable and how they designate themselves. That has been position since Irish citizenship came about, and it is has been reinforced by the successful initiatives of Prime Minister Blair and Taoiseach Ahern, and their predecessors, John Major and the Taoiseach who was TD for Roscommon—his name will come to me in a moment. We had the Belfast agreement, the Good Friday agreement and the St. Andrews agreement, which put on an institutional basis the idea that people in Northern Ireland should be able to decide how they designate themselves. However, the same does not happen for a relatively small minority, though not an insignificant number of people, who were born in the Irish Republic after the Oireachtas passed the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into force on 18 April 1949. People born in the Republic of Ireland after that cannot designate themselves British. That is unfair, wrong and inconsistent with the practice for people who are born in Northern Ireland. I therefore believe that we should ensure parity of treatment.