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

Debate between Baroness Bull and Lord McNicol of West Kilbride

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

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Oates, has, in his opening contribution, clearly outlined many of the arguments why this simple, short amendment on physical documentation should be accepted by Her Majesty’s Government. It is only five lines long, but within those five lines, so much future heartache and pain could be averted—averted for the most vulnerable in society.

As we have heard, this amendment is tempered and moderate. The words

“and who request such proof”

in subsection (1) show how measured this cross-party amendment, proposed by a grouping of the noble Lords, Lord Oates, Lord Polak, Lord Kerslake and me, is an attempt to be. I hope that the Minister can be as accommodating as we have been.

There have been calls under previous amendments for physical documentation to be automatically provided for all. I have sympathy with that call but, in the hope that we can get to a position where our amendment could be accepted by the Minister and Her Majesty’s Government, the words

“and who request such proof”

have been added. It would be a very sad day if the Minister cannot accept this short and sensible amendment.

In rereading the Commons Committee debate and previous debates on this amendment in your Lordships’ House, like others, I am still at a loss to understand why the Minister feels she cannot accept or support it. The arguments against have been, at best, vague. When responding on 14 September, the Minister said, when referring to the Home Office letter:

“I must say, it is not proof; it is confirmation. This should reassure individuals about their status when dealing with the Home Office in the future”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1094.]


Well, no. It is the issuing of the physical proof that is vital and will give those individuals the reassurance they need. We all heard the noble Lord, Lord Russell, in his contribution on Amendment 16 talking about the issues surrounding the Home Office. It is vital for so many reasons—for work, for housing, for the feeling of belonging.

Like many others who spoke earlier, I fully support the digitisation and the move to online processing and ordering, but there are issues and concerns with the only form of access to proof being digital and online. We have heard some of those. What happens if the online systems fail—like our voting system last Wednesday, when it was critically and crucially needed? Only this weekend, we have seen the failures in relation to Covid testing and the errors that have occurred with the digitisation there. But it is not just the errors: there are also those who are not digitally literate. What support will the Government offer to them, if they will not accept the amendment?

I hope that, with the cross-party support of this simple, short amendment, it can be accepted and introduced.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I fully support all the points so eloquently argued, once again, by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. I will speak briefly only to reiterate the points I raised in Committee, which were not fully addressed by the Minister in her response.

My first point relates to people in abusive and coercive relationships. I pointed out then, and remind the House now, that a common strategy in coercive control cases is to deprive the victim of access to phone and internet use. This raises the question of how someone who escapes a relationship with a coercive partner will be able to prove their status in future if, as is likely, it was the abusive partner who managed the process of claiming settled status in the first place. In seeking to rent a safe place to live, or to get a job in order to pay the rent, they would be obliged to contact the partner they are likely to have struggled so hard to leave. This is not a sidebar issue. Coercive control is now, quite rightly, a criminal offence in the UK. In the year to March last year, there were 17,616 offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. Can the Minister explain what protection there will be for victims of coercive control or abuse, so that they are not forced back into contact with their abuser in order to prove their immigration status?

My second concern is for people with impaired mental capacity, who are unlikely to have been able to navigate the application system alone, or to have been able to enter into mobile and internet accounts in their own names. Given the fluidity of the social care workforce, there is no guarantee that, at a later point in life when they are applying for a job or to rent a home, they will still be connected with the carer or caseworker who provided assistance. Mental capacity changes over time. Someone who has mental capacity when they apply may lack it at a later date, without the moment at which this change takes place being immediately clear. Can the Minister explain how people who lack mental capacity, now or in the future, are to be protected?

In response to these concerns, which I articulated in Committee, the Minister reiterated the Government’s commitment to

“delivering a service that reflects the diverse needs of all users.”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1094.]

Given everything that noble Lords have argued on this question, this evening and previously, does she not agree that delivering a service that reflects the diverse needs of all users will include, first, an assessment of which members of society would be disadvantaged by the lack of a physical document; and, secondly, an assessment of the impact of accessibility issues on all potential service users?

I know that the Minister will agree that equality of access should be at the heart of every government policy. This tiny amendment—a simple slip of paper and only if requested—does nothing more than ensure that this is the case. For this reason, it has my support.