The Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill was granted a second reading on 30 June 2025. It will next be considered in a committee of the whole House on 14 July.

If the bill passes, someone who successfully appeals against an order taking their British citizenship away would not get their citizenship back until it is no longer possible for the government to challenge that appeal.

Background to the bill

Citizenship deprivation

The Home Secretary has the power to take away a person’s British citizenship if they consider it conducive to the public good, or if the person obtained their citizenship by fraud. The power of citizenship deprivation is in section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981.

Depriving someone of their British citizenship for the public good is generally used in the context of national security or counter-terrorism. The aim is to prevent a person who poses a threat to the United Kingdom from returning to the country, which they would otherwise have a right to do as a British citizen.

From 2010 to 2023, there were 222 deprivation orders on the ground that it was conducive to the public good. There is a right of appeal, which in cases involving national security are heard in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. The Commons Library research briefing Deprivation of British citizenship and withdrawal of passports has more background information.

Appeals against citizenship deprivation

Historically, if someone challenged citizenship deprivation, the proposed order was referred to a committee of inquiry. When formal rights of appeal were introduced in 2002, they included a rule that the proposed order could not take effect until any appeal had concluded.

This rule was repealed by the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004. The current position is that a citizenship deprivation order takes effect when the Home Secretary decides, but the person can try to overturn it on appeal.

In February 2025, the Supreme Court made two findings on what exactly happens when someone wins an appeal against a citizenship deprivation order:

  1. When someone successfully appeals a deprivation order, they are treated as never having lost their British citizenship, except that any immigration enforcement action against them during the appeal process was legal (paragraph 90). This finding looks backwards at the person’s status between when the order was made and when the appeal was decided.
  2. No further action is required to undo the deprivation order: the Home Secretary does not have to actively lift the order following the appeal decision for the order to lose its binding effect (paragraphs 85, 91 and 92). This finding looks forwards at the person’s status in the immediate aftermath of the appeal decision.

The bill would change the second of these Supreme Court findings, but not the first.

Contents of the bill

Citizenship deprivation to stand until all appeals are resolved

The bill contains one substantive clause. The clause would provide that, once a citizenship deprivation order is made, it continues to have effect throughout the appeal process. This means that, even if someone wins their appeal at the first stage, they would still be without British citizenship until the government has either lost any subsequent appeal to a higher court or run out of time to lodge such an appeal.  

The government says this change is necessary for national security. If the Supreme Court judgment were to stand in full, “a person who may be overseas may seek to enter the UK or to renounce any other nationality they hold before the Home Office has had an opportunity to exhaust the appeal process”.

Clause 1(2) would make this change retroactive. It would cover people who have an appeal ongoing already, not just cases which begin after the act comes into force. This may indicate that the Home Office is trying to keep a particular person out of the UK who has recently won an appeal which the department is trying to contest in a higher court.

The Home Office says that the bill is not intended to reverse the Supreme Court’s other finding (discussed above): “if an appellant is successful in any final determination of their appeal, they will be regarded in law as having always been a British citizen”. Nor does the bill affect the person’s right to lodge an appeal in the first place.

These quotes are from the bill’s explanatory notes, which have been published alongside a human rights memorandum and a press release. The press release says that the proposed change “follows the similar approach taken in asylum and human rights appeals cases, where asylum is not granted to a person appealing a rejection until all further appeals, up to the Court of Appeal, have been determined”.

Effect on cases not involving national security

The bill’s wording is not restricted to situations involving national security. It would not, for example, affect only appeals that begin in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. On the face of it, the much more common scenario of citizenship deprivation for fraud – under section 40(3) of the 1981 act – would also be affected.

The human rights memorandum says that, in practice, it is unlikely that fraud cases would be significantly affected. This is because in those cases, “as a matter of a policy”, the Home Office chooses to wait until the appeal process is over before making the deprivation order. If the department were to change this practice in future and follow the same procedure as in national security cases, then under the bill the person would be without citizenship until all appeals had concluded.

Commencement and territorial extent

The bill would come into force on the day it is passed. It extends to the entire UK, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories.

Second reading debate

The responsible minister, Dan Jarvis, emphasised national security considerations. There were, he said, very good reasons for the measure, including to “prevent someone who is outside the UK and who poses a risk to our national security from returning when a further appeal may be upheld”.

He described the possibility of somebody regaining British citizenship immediately after their appeal as a “loophole”; closing it would simply “take us back to the legal position we were in a matter of months ago, prior to the judgment of the Supreme Court”.

Harriet Cross, the Conservative spokesperson, said that her party supported the bill. She said the immediate restoration of citizenship following a successful appeal put the UK out of step with its allies: “the United States, Canada, Australia, France and the Netherlands all maintain revocation of citizenship throughout appeals”.

Several MPs expressed reservations. Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party) noted that it would entail “making people temporarily stateless”. Kit Malthouse (Conservative) argued that the measure would undermine the principle that “appeal equals vindication” and questioned whether it was necessary, asking the minister whether judges in individual cases could not be asked to suspend immediate restoration of citizenship pending further appeal by the government.

The bill was nevertheless granted a second reading without a division.

Further reading

Adrian Berry KC, a nationality law expert, has published a briefing on the bill for the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association.

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