Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on the way in which she introduced this debate. However, I echo the concerns expressed around the House about the Henry VIII powers in Clauses 4 and 5, which seem to deny parliamentarians the right to a say over the new Immigration Rules in the future. I fear that that is not the kind of “taking back control” that fits with our tradition of parliamentary sovereignty.

The Bill is silent on how the changes that it makes in relation to Irish citizens will affect the rights of Northern Irish citizens under the Good Friday agreement. However, I want to focus my brief remarks on the issue raised by many others across the House: the implications for the social care workforce and the elderly, disabled or frail individuals who rely on them for their basic quality of daily life.

I support the desire for employers to focus on investing in their staff, providing training and increasing the prestige of the care workforce, thus making it an attractive profession, but that will take a long time. Even in 2018, the National Audit Office highlighted the lack of any updated DHSC strategy for the adult social care workforce. Nearly 20% of that workforce is from overseas but, despite that, there are more than 120,000 vacancies and staff turnover is around one-third each year. The new points-based system will not include those workers.

I support the aim of attracting the very best migrants from around the world but, unlike in the Australian and New Zealand points systems, our limit of £25,000 a year suggests that those working in social care are not considered to be skilled or valuable enough to be worthy of British residence. However, low pay does not mean low value. What will happen if the domestic workforce cannot be trained? We cannot ask these frail, vulnerable individuals to just wait until the training programme works out. As the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, powerfully explained, this is not about care homes alone; it is about those who live in their own homes and who rely on some immigrants to help look after them.

The domestic workforce is unlikely to respond quickly or positively to work in the care sector—a sector that is underfunded and where workers are underpaid relative to the NHS. Unless we have the Government’s long-term plan for social care, for which we are still waiting a year after it was supposed to be oven-ready, we cannot seriously expect the social care workforce to be filled domestically. I urge my noble friend to listen to the words of my noble friend Lord Naseby and others and introduce a transitional scheme that will help encourage immigration for social care.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 47, to which I added my name, but I also strongly support other amendments in the group, particularly that of my noble friend Lord Patel, who spoke powerfully in favour of making sure that we do not create barriers preventing health and social care staff coming to this country. I do not want to duplicate what others have said, so I will speak briefly about the difficulties we have in recruiting staff over here, which others have certainly emphasised.

The NHS employs half a million staff and has 100,000 vacancies reported by trusts, many of them among low-paid workers. This figure is projected to rise over the coming years, rather than diminish. Our problems will become pretty well impossible to manage unless we do something about it.

We want more support staff employed in primary care. This has been a policy goal for a long time and the NHS long-term plan continues to reflect this ambition, but the number of support staff working in community services has continued to fall, and I expect it to continue to do so. GP surgeries are desperate to appoint support staff but cannot do so. As others have said strongly, a similar picture applies to the social care sector, where we have 8,632 vacancies, according to the latest available data—surely unsustainable, as the number of elderly people needing care rises relentlessly, not to mention, as others have, the many people with disabilities and a range of problems.

The NHS Long Term Plan acknowledges that international recruitment will continue to be vital in the short to medium term if we are to deal with our staff shortages. This is being constrained, says a report by the Health Foundation, by immigration policies. Surely the Government need to pay attention to that, and I hope the Minister will respond to that point. Immigration policies are really causing problems for our health and social care services. Instead of imposing barriers to EEA and Swiss entrants, would it not be better for Ministers to concentrate on reducing barriers to well-qualified migrants with good English from the rest of the world? Amendment 47 is key, as are the other amendments in this group, if we are to improve our health and social care staffing or to avoid a serious drop in the quality and availability of these crucial services. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I have added my name to Amendments 47 and 66, but the intentions and sentiments already expressed so well by many noble Lords are ones that I fully endorse. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Masham, and other noble Lords for the excellent way in which they have explained the urgent need for measures in the Bill that specifically address the shortage of social care staff. I implore my noble friend on the Front Bench, who I know cares about this issue as much as so many of us around the House, to take back to the department the strength of feeling across the House on this matter and address some of these issues before Report.

We are talking here about the biggest failure of social policy in modern times. The inadequacy of our social care provision is already well documented and well known, and the Government are already committed to addressing this issue as soon as possible. We cannot move forward and improve the quality of social care without staff. We cannot mechanise this. Care workers may be low paid, but that does not mean they are low skilled. They are essential to enabling increasing numbers of people to live decent lives. We are not talking about bringing in low-paid shelf stackers; we are talking about the emotional, physical and mental well-being of some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Given that the Government are the main funders of social care and have not yet funded adequately social care providers who employ staff who might generally earn above the £25,000 cut-off, that imposes on the Government a duty to ensure that our immigration policy does not deter those who might be willing to work for less than that figure—most of the people who work in social care already do so—from coming to this country when, as we have already heard, around one in five of our social care staff is already from overseas.

I know my noble friend responded to these concerns at Second Reading by saying that the Government hope that Britons will fill the shortfall, but hopes are not good enough. It takes time to try to find any UK nationals, train them in the right skills and raise the standards of pay. What are these elderly and disabled people supposed to do in the meantime? They need care. I therefore hope my noble friend might still consider the implications of these amendments, or at the very least agree to a transitional, temporary social care visa, perhaps for five or 10 years, that specifically enables social care providers and individuals who need to employ somebody to care for them in their own home to find those overseas workers who are willing to come here and fill the gaps we currently have, rather than having an immigration system that rules out being able to bring them in.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, has withdrawn, so I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendments in this group. I echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who moved them clearly and explained the importance of what is being sought by introducing them.

As the noble Baroness mentioned, this seems timely, given some of the recent very troubling reports. Lately, the possibility has arisen that the Government are not satisfied with the withdrawal agreement in some way, having signed it recently in good faith, while working, hopefully, towards an agreed exit after the transition period at the end of this year. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure the House that there is no intention of trying to override the withdrawal agreement in any way and that our country will not be seen to be trying to renege on an international agreement, especially so soon after having signed it.

I hope that UK citizens living in the EU can be reassured that the measures in the Bill will not be affected deleteriously by future regulations that might change what they thought was already enshrined in this international agreement and that pensions, pension increases, other benefits and health care will be protected, as was intended and implied in the withdrawal agreement. I also hope that the measures in the Bill will remain consistent with the withdrawal agreement and that no powers under the Bill will be used to make provisions inconsistent with that agreement.

I know these are probing amendments and I hope that the reassurances or necessary changes can be made to satisfy the House. I support the intention of these amendments and look forward to my noble friend’s response.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments, led by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, is about ensuring that the Government cannot legislate by regulation, contrary to the withdrawal agreement. This is a prescient set of amendments, tabled when it might not have been thought that there was a particular danger of that happening. However, the pronouncements and press reports since last night—there is some backtracking going on, however, which we will debate in the Chamber tomorrow—raise serious fears about the Government’s reliability and integrity in respecting the withdrawal agreement, and, indeed, any other treaty commitments. It raises the question of whether they can be trusted.

We will be debating separately the question of the Government’s refusal to give settled status applicants a physical document, not just a digital code. I will raise a brief query here: whether a digital code alone would satisfy the requirement in Article 18 of the withdrawal agreement for

“a document evidencing such status which may be in a digital form.”

Those latter words were added at the UK’s insistence, as we understand it, but it still talks about a document evidencing status. I wonder whether a digital code is a document.

Not least as a feature of the settled status scheme which has been flagged up by the3million, which does excellent work and has provided some fantastic briefing—I shall use this occasion to thank that organisation along with the organisation, British in Europe—non EU-national family members get a physical document in the form of a biometric residence permit. Since Article 12 of the withdrawal agreement requires the Government not to discriminate on the grounds of nationality, it is odd that EU citizens do not get a physical document but those in the family who are not EU citizens have a biometric residence permit. That is rather strange.

In the context of group 1, I raised comprehensive sickness insurance. The Minister said that the Government would use their discretion in deciding whether the absence of CSI in the past would bar a person from getting UK citizenship. I know that this will come up again in a later group. However, it is important to note that the UK is regarded by the European Commission as being in breach of EU law by insisting on the term “comprehensive sickness insurance” as it is in the 2004 citizens’ rights and freedom of movement directive. The Commission insists, as indeed MEPs did at the time, that this means only that relevant persons should have access to whatever the health system is locally, so the Government’s insistence that they should pay for private health insurance is, as I understand it, the subject of ongoing infringement proceedings.

In 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May promised EU citizens that the CSI—I prefer to call it private health insurance because that is what we are talking about—for those who had been economically inactive would be dropped as a requirement for settled status under the new system. However, what is happening now is that those people applying for citizenship are at risk of having their applications refused because in the past they did not have private health insurance, even though they had been told that they did not need it for their settled status application. When they apply for citizenship, they are told that retroactively they will be barred if they did not have private health insurance in the past. This feels like moving the goalposts, playing cat and mouse and so on, and the Government will not make any friends by this. The Minister referred to a power of discretion, but I do not believe that any details have been made known about how that would be applied, so that leaves people in the dark and in a state of anxiety.

I should mention also that Article 10 of the withdrawal agreement states that those covered by the citizens’ rights provisions of the agreement include

“Union citizens who exercised their right to reside in the United Kingdom in accordance with Union law”.


Union law—that is, EU law—means that the ability to use the NHS qualifies as “comprehensive sickness insurance”; that is the view of the European Commission, which as I say is following infringement proceedings. If the Government persist with this, I fear that they will come up against problems under the withdrawal agreement and there is a risk that they would be seen to be acting in bad faith. The amendments in this group therefore insist that the Government must abide by the withdrawal agreement in making regulations under both Clause 4 and Clause 5, and that should include doing away with the retrospective demand. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance on that point.

A great deal of justified concern has also been expressed about children either in or leaving care. I do not have time to talk about this now because it will come up again at least in part in a later group, but it is a matter of great concern. Local authorities, even with the best will in the world, have found over the past six months with the challenge of Covid that they have not had or have not applied the resources to assist children who ought to be applying under the settlement scheme. They are finding it very difficult to get the evidence together, so I hope that the Government can give some reassurance about the assistance that they will be given. We will also talk later about the dangers of another Windrush.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has been terrier-like in her pursuit of these issues. I, like the whole House, am grateful to her for that and I too thank the organisations she mentioned.

The fees are to exercise a right, but a right is no use if you cannot exercise it. The fees are a deterrent. They are a deterrent if you think that you are in a sufficiently secure position and do not understand the distinction between immigration status and citizenship. They are a deterrent if you are told by the Government that you are in secure position through the European Union settled status scheme. They are obviously a deterrent if you cannot afford them. I will not be the only Member of the Committee who has heard distressing stories of families who have realised that they cannot afford to pay for the citizenship registration of all family members and have selected some. If there is a mother with four children—well, we can all do the maths.

The noble Baroness used words, which I have written down, that are about more than security; they are about a sense of belonging. Otherwise, over the years why would so many people have chosen to become citizens through a sometimes pretty laborious route, having to take tests about things that would probably be mysteries to many of us and culminating in citizenship ceremonies? I have been to one. The ceremony is an important part of the whole process—the recognition of that belonging.

Everyone understands that there are administrative costs to these things, but the current fees far exceed the costs. There is a surplus—I use that term rather than “profit”, because I understand that the Minister protests at the term “profit”—in the order of £600, as I understand it, and £800 in the case of adults, where the fees are something like £1,200. The Home Office talks about this surplus being justified because of the benefit, but I do not understand the logic of citizenship being a benefit if indefinite leave to remain is an equivalent, or at least sufficient to meet all the attributes of citizenship, as seems to be argued by the Home Office.

The noble Baroness mentioned the Windrush scandal, and I am sure the Home Office must be anxious not to get into a similar situation. It has said that all Wendy Williams’s recommendations are accepted. About three of those are about meaningful engagement with stakeholders and communities and the use of research. If the Home Office were to engage on this topic and undertake research, I think it would understand how very fully these issues play with the people affected. In any event, as has been said, citizenship is about rights—the right to citizenship of the children referred to—and we should not put blocks in the way of rights.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for the excellent way in which she introduced these two amendments. I have added my name to Amendment 30, but I support Amendment 68 as well. I echo her words and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in thanking the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens and Amnesty International UK for their helpful briefings.

I will not detain the Committee long, but I emphasise and urge my noble friend to consider that, as the two noble Baronesses said, this is about not a benefit but a statutory right to give someone the security of UK citizenship. If the cost of the administration is £372 according to the Home Office, it seems difficult to understand why three times that amount—a 200% mark- up—is applied to those trying to exercise their rights. It should not be a business transaction; that should not be any part of this equation.

During the passage of the British Nationality Act 1981, it was said that Parliament intended that all children growing up in the UK with that connection

“should have as strong a sense of security as possible.”—[Official Report, Commons, 24/2/81; col. 177.]

Charging more than £1,000 will clearly be prohibitive. As both noble Baronesses who have spoken said, the High Court found in 2019 that unaffordability meant that children who were born here—who feel British—feel alienated. Have we not learned from the Windrush generation that people should not be excluded from their citizenship rights? Indeed, on the question of Windrush, this could be a near exact repeat of what happened. In the 1980s, Parliament gave people the right to register as British citizens, but apparently they were discouraged from exercising that right. Just as it wrongly told the Windrush generation that immigration status was the same as having citizenship, I hope that today the Home Office will not repeat the mistaken claim that British people do not need British citizenship and are adequately provided for by applying for a different immigration status. These are lessons that were highlighted in the report of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review and I hope that we will take them seriously. I support these probing amendments and hope that my noble friend will be able to address them before Report.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Amendment 46, on applications for citizenship from people with settled status, takes us to the issue of comprehensive sickness insurance. For citizenship, are we talking about something more than settled status and people who have exercised treaty rights? I know that my noble friend Lady Ludford has done a lot of work on the requirements for comprehensive sickness insurance, so I am sure she will cover that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 44 on late applications, to which I have added my name, especially in the light of the pandemic, with people perhaps not being well for quite some time or not knowing that they need to register. I hope that there will be explicit provision in the Bill for late applications. I also support Amendment 96, which would require publication of reasonable grounds for late application. Again, that would help people to understand that there is the wherewithal, for those who have missed the deadline, for genuine reasons to be catered for.

I also support Amendment 46 in the light of the information we have received from members of the public who are concerned about their lack of sickness insurance. I would be grateful if my noble friend could address that issue and what deliberations there have been in the department that might address the issues raised in this group of amendments. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I regret that I was deterred from joining the crowded ranks for the Second Reading of the Bill. I support all the amendments in the group and I shall speak to Amendment 46, to which I have added my name. The noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, has asked me to reiterate his support for it, as he cannot be here today.

As we have heard, Amendment 46 concerns the retrospective requirement for comprehensive sickness insurance to have been taken out before settled status is granted throughout any period of self-sufficiency or as a student. This requirement has borne disproportionately hard on Roma people, with consequent unjust refusals of applications for naturalisation. This has been brought to my attention by the Roma Support Group, since it has particularly affected Roma women who have been looking after children full time, and thus are self-sufficient—neither employed nor self-employed—and who have applied for settled status using such documentation as they had, such as rental agreements or council tax bills, which were of course deemed insufficient. The requirement also prejudices the children of parents who have settled status but who did not acquire comprehensive sickness insurance themselves. The fees are usually out of their reach.

In answer to my Question HL6271 on this matter last July, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said that having comprehensive sickness insurance

“has always been a requirement”

under EEA regulations, implying that students and self-sufficient people should have known about the requirement and ensured that they had the insurance. In fact, the CSI requirement results from the Home Office’s specific interpretation of EU regulations, which the European Commission considers to be in breach of EU law. I quote the European Commission’s own text:

“Under the Free Movement Directive, EU citizens who settle in another EU country but do not work there may be required to have sufficient resources and sickness insurance. The United Kingdom, however, does not consider entitlement to treatment by the UK public healthcare scheme (NHS) as sufficient. This breaches EU law.”

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 16, to which I am a signatory. I wholeheartedly endorse the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has become the terrier-in-chief on this issue, and I am grateful to the Minister for making time to discuss this issue with me last Thursday in advance of today’s debate.

Amendment 16, as we have just heard in the noble Baroness’s speech, is modest in its aim, merely requiring the Secretary of State to consult and report to the House upon both awareness of British citizenship and the exercise of the rights that such citizenship confers. I said a lot about citizenship in Committee and why it is a completely separate matter from issues such as immigration and naturalisation. I will not rehearse all those arguments all over again today; suffice it to say that the amendment does nothing to affect those contested issues.

This thoughtful, moderate, reasonable new amendment simply tries to take the debate forward in a constructive and helpful way. It is also in sync and compatible with the rights to British citizenship that were enacted in Part 1 of the British Nationality Act 1981. I shall summarise what the amendment does. Its new clause contains six subsections. Subsection (1) requires the Secretary of State to lay a report. The people who report concerns are the people defined as “relevant persons” in subsection (6)—that is, in summary, people with rights to British citizenship who are losing EU free movement rights in the UK.

Subsection (2) sets out what that report must contain. It must contain an assessment by the Secretary of State of two matters: the level of awareness among people of their rights to British citizenship and the level of exercise of these rights. In making those assessments, the Secretary of State must have regard to several factors identified within subsection (2)(c), each of which concerns barriers to people being able to exercise their statutory rights to British citizenship.

Subsection (3) requires the Secretary of State to pay particular regard to her equalities duties in producing this report and to make some comparison of the situation of two groups of people with rights to British citizenship: the group of people with rights to British citizenship who are losing EU free movement rights in the UK—this group is the focus of the report required by the amendment—and the group of people with rights to British citizenship who do not have EU free movement rights.

Subsection (4) requires the Secretary of State to undertake consultation in the preparation of her report. Subsection (5) requires the Secretary of State to give particular attention to the situation of various groups of particularly marginalised children and young people, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister; Appendix B provides some case studies relating to those groups of children and young people, similar to those outlined by the noble Baroness; and Subsection (6), which contains definitions, defines children and young people as people under the age of 25.

I shall unpack the amendment in a little more detail. Subsection (2)(c)(i) touches on the impact that fees can have on the rights of citizenship. I appreciate that the Minister cannot comment on the court case in which the High Court found against the Home Office. In earlier proceedings, I mentioned that I had given a witness statement. The Royal Courts of Justice will hear the department’s appeal on 5-7 October, and I understand that the case will be livestreamed.

However, what the Minister can comment on is a reply that she gave me to a Written Question on 10 September. I had asked her about the costs of mounting an appeal, and she replied:

“The information that you have requested on legal and administrative costs is not available”,


and added that

“we are not able to provide an accurate assessment of legal costs.”

I will repeat that:

“we are not able to provide an accurate assessment of legal costs.”

This inability to establish what the legal taximeter is clocking up contrasts starkly with the ability of the Home Office to work out how much it costs to operate this system of fee collection, and which, at over £1,000, the former Home Secretary Sajid Javid rightly said is a prohibitively expensive system. Why is it that we are able to work out how much we can generate in fees above the administrative costs, but cannot work out the costs of fighting legal actions which simply compound one mistaken decision with another? What other litigant would embark on a major legal action without any idea of what it could cost? I am sure that the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which keeps a weather eye on how taxpayers’ money is used, will have something to say about that.

Even more serious, however, is the principle of putting a major financial roadblock in the path of those who need to feel that they belong, that they are part of the web and weave of British society, and that they are true citizens of what is a truly great country. The importance of knowing you belong is something that I know is close to the heart of the Minister; we are at one on that. This amendment would seek an examination of such barriers.

Throughout preceding debates, noble Lords have repeatedly pressed the Government about children’s rights, especially those of looked-after children. Surely their vulnerable and special position alone should justify at least an examination of their special circumstances. Let us recall, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has done, that the High Court said that fees cause many children caught up in this fee-generating arrangement to feel

“alienated, excluded, isolated, ‘second best’, insecure and not fully assimilated into the culture and social fabric of the UK”.

We have a duty to address the implications of those words.

To that group I would add another, which is covered in proposed new subsection 3(a) of the amendment: those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. The House will recall that in Committee I raised the position of the Roma—something to which the noble Baroness also referred in her remarks. I would especially draw the Minister’s attention to the position of Roma children, who have been cited by the European Children’s Rights Unit as being especially disadvantaged and at risk.

I truly hope that the Minister will feel able to accept this amendment. I am sure that even if, in the first instance, it was confined to the most at-risk categories, it would represent a good start. Seeking a consultation and a review is not an unreasonable ask. I commend this amendment to the House.

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on her persistence and dedication to this issue. Her passionate advocacy, particularly for vulnerable children, has always been impressive. I share her concerns.

I must admit that I truly cannot understand why the Government are resisting this extremely modest amendment. Indeed, the problem has been going on for so long, and this amendment is so reasonable in wanting to encourage the Government to agree at least to look at this issue carefully, seriously and thoroughly, that it would seem almost impossible to reject it. Perhaps we will hear from my noble friend the Minister that the Government are indeed minded to look at this more seriously and accept it after all.

The wording could clearly have been much stronger. The strength of feeling across the House at previous stages of the Bill has been clear. Children who have been born here and have the right to citizenship but then have to register to obtain this right, perhaps having to pay significant amounts that they cannot afford, seems to undermine some of the principles on which we base our country and citizenship.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have described the details of this lengthy amendment. I will not repeat them, but the principles referred to are so important to many individuals in this country, and to their rights as granted to them by Parliament. I find it puzzling, as well as disappointing, to see the Government so far refusing to agree to this.

Indeed, the Public Accounts Committee in the other place, in its report laid last month entitled Immigration Enforcement, has criticised the inadequacy of information available to my noble friend’s department and called for an urgent report to be carried out. Accepting this amendment could indeed assist the Government in that regard. For example, in one of its recommendations, the Public Accounts Committee says:

“Building on its response to the Windrush lessons learned review, the department should mobilise its evidence base and evaluations to challenge its own assumptions and beliefs about the user experience within the immigration system.”


That is part of what this amendment is attempting to do.

If my noble friend the Minister could accept the thrust of this amendment, and announce this at Third Reading, I believe that many of us on these Benches would be delighted and that there would be support from every side of the House.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the Home Office funded a project in 2019 which led to findings that many migrant children from the European Union who were eligible to apply for settlement status were also eligible to register as British. It was found especially that Roma children are both more likely to be eligible than many other EEA or Swiss migrants and more disadvantaged by Brexit; for instance, in supplying the correct documentary evidence, and given that the information on the need to register before the age of 18 is not effectively transmitted. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to this report. The disadvantage that it exposes needs to be redressed. Is the Minister aware of the University of Liverpool study which sets out the problems in detail?

As my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett said in her powerful speech, an important point is that the scale of the fees has deterred many eligible applicants. As she and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, indicated, the High Court agreed that these costs were so disproportionate and prohibitive as to constitute a breach by the Secretary of State of her duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and undermined the objective of the British Nationality Act. I agree with my noble friend that it is really unfortunate that the Government are appealing this decision. The hearing is set for 6 October to 7 October, so a precipitate provision should not be put forward by the Government.

Finally, in addition, there are Roma people who were granted asylum and ILR status before their countries joined the European Union but who do not have documentary evidence of this. Importantly, neither do their children, so the children are also at risk of deportation. This amendment would go far to rectify the injustice.