Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs express concern about ‘stateless’ plan for terror suspects

Concern is growing across the House of Commons about Theresa May’s last-minute amendment to the Immigration Bill rendering foreign-born terror suspects ‘stateless’. Today on Radio 4’s the Week in Westminster, I interviewed Laura Sandys and Mark Reckless, two Tory MPs who occupy rather different ends of the Conservative spectrum. But both expressed discomfort with this proposal, and were clear they’d voted for it because they’d been promised a briefing afterwards. This is what Sandys said:

‘I supported it after I was assured that we would have a proper debrief and discuss it after it had gone through the House of Lords, and I am quite concerned about it, I don’t think that it is a good default position to be in, I do not like legislation on the statute book that could be used by a very different sort of Home Secretary in a different climate in a different way, so I will look forward to getting a little bit more reassurance on those particular matters.’

Reckless added:

‘There was some suspicion that it was intended to prevent a debate and vote on Nigel Mills’ amendment about Bulgarian and Romanian restrictions.

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