Child Citizenship Fees
Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Manzoor
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on children of the £1,012 fee to apply to register their entitlement to British citizenship.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, the Home Office duty to have regard to a child’s best interest is considered when developing immigration and nationality fees policy, and is met through the waivers and exceptions in place. This position is reviewed in the policy equality statements that accompany each year’s fee charges. The Home Office will consider representations made on child citizenship fees in this year’s fees review.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister, but no child rights impact assessment has been published. How can the Government meet their duty under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to give primary consideration to the best interests of the child when they fail to provide that assessment of the “huge” registration fee, to quote the Home Secretary? It effectively denies children born in this country their statutory right to citizenship, thereby undermining their sense of security, identity and belonging, and potentially creating a new Windrush generation.
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, we understand the need that children and young people have to establish a secure status for their future when they have been in the UK for most of their lives. The published impact assessment considers the overall impact of immigration and nationality fee changes and estimates the overall costs and benefits to the UK economy. It assesses the impact of fee changes not on the individual applicant, but rather on the UK as a whole. Given the large number of fees included, results are presented at an aggregated level.
Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018
Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Manzoor
Baroness Manzoor
My Lords, I have answered in my earlier comments exactly and precisely the question raised by the noble Baroness. I am conscious of pressing time and I want to deal with some specific points that have also been raised.
As I said, the decision to become a citizen is a personal choice, and it is right that those who make that decision should pay a fee. However, the legislation does allow for local authorities which are looking after children to pay a child citizenship fee if they believe it is in the child’s interests.
I shall respond to a few questions. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said that the Home Office needs to move much more quickly, and I can tell your Lordships that only last week the Immigration Minister met Solange Valdez-Symonds to whom she referred, to discuss this issue, which I think is an indication of the seriousness with which we treat this matter. I can say to the noble Baroness that caring and compassion about the welfare of children, as we have seen this evening, rests across the House, including on these Benches.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Sheehan, the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Russell, and other noble Lords, made some comparisons with Windrush. Just to be clear, Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK before 1973 had a legal right to be here then, and to stay here. There is not a comparison between the children we are talking about today and the Windrush generation.
I turn to a question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that the Government are making a profit from children in care. I cannot agree with that, and I totally refute the allegation that has been made. Those in care can qualify, as I said, to receive indefinite leave to remain, and are exempted from paying the fee. Local authorities may also pay their citizenship fee, where appropriate, as I have said. Those who are not in care and who meet the destitution criteria receive limited leave to remain free of charge. The normal period of leave to remain for those applications is 30 months, but there is discretion to grant a longer period of leave and to grant indefinite leave to remain immediately, where appropriate and where it is clearly sought.
We have in place legislative safeguards to ensure that children have access to education and health services, and that they are supported with access to accommodation and living needs if these cannot be provided by their parents. These safeguards apply to all children, irrespective of their immigration status. Limited leave to remain, based on a child’s private life or other human rights grounds, confers legal resident status and allows access to higher and further education, training and employment opportunities.
Time is moving on, and I hope that that has captured some of the issues that were raised. In conclusion, as I said at the start of my remarks, this has been an excellent debate, with informed contributions from all sides. I repeat my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for having given your Lordships the opportunity to discuss this important topic. As I sought to demonstrate, the Government are deeply committed to the welfare of children who come into contact with the immigration system, and the numbers that I cited earlier provide strong evidence of that. We set fees at a level designed to minimise the burden on the taxpayer. As I have said, there is the capacity to waive fees for those who most need it. The Government will continue to honour their international obligations in respect of children and ensure that those children who are here are treated fairly and humanely.
Like the Home Secretary, I understand the issue and care about it passionately. I have heard very clearly the strength of feeling on this matter expressed by your Lordships this evening about children. Of course, I will ensure that the message is transmitted to the Immigration Minister and the Home Secretary.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I am very grateful to everybody who has spoken and to noble Lords who have listened as well. I shall not try to sum up everything that has been said, but many noble Lords spoke with great passion and drew attention to how we compare with other European countries in how the fee has increased. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, said that I had argued that the benefits of British citizenship should not be overstated. It was not me who argued that; just for the record, I was stating that that is what the Government argue. Noble Lords such as the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, emphasised the importance to children of citizenship and belonging.
I am grateful to the Minister. I feel that she has drawn the short straw; she has been asked to justify the unjustifiable, and there were moments when I got the sense that she was finding it quite difficult to do so. That is not a criticism, actually—it is a compliment.
I was looking around the House and there was a look of bewilderment on everyone’s faces. I lost count of the number of times that the noble Baroness talked about immigration. A number of noble Lords made it clear from the outset that this is not about immigration; it is about children who are either born here or have lived most of their lives here and know no other country. That is what we are talking about. We are not talking about the number of asylum-seeking children who have been let in—not nearly enough, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Dubs would agree. We are talking about children who belong here, who have discovered that they are not British although they thought they had British citizenship—but they have that entitlement to it. I am afraid I do not see it as context; I see it as rather irrelevant and a bit of a red herring.
The Minister talked about visas, immigration and so forth, and the Border Force. As my noble friend Lord Harris said, these are children who have never crossed a border, so what is the relevance? Why should they be paying for the Border Force? She said that the Government strongly encourage children to apply to make their stay lawful, but they are here lawfully—that is not what they are applying for. She said that the fee could be waived for leave to remain, or indefinite leave to remain. The noble Lord, Lord Alton—I think I have his words correct—said that this is “a flaccid and insulting argument”. I know that the Minister would not want to be insulting, but we are not talking about leave to remain but about the need for citizenship, and it matters. We have been given examples of children who would otherwise have been removed from the country if it had not been for charitable support and the work of the Project supporting them. So it does make a difference, and I am afraid it is not enough to talk about leave to remain.
The Minister then said that it was not right to make the comparison with the Windrush generation because they have the legal right to be here. We are talking about children who have a legal right to be here, which is why a number of us have made the comparison with the Windrush generation, and fear that we are creating a new Windrush generation if we are not making it possible for these children to take up their right to citizenship because of what the Home Secretary himself called a huge cost. “Huge” is not a word government Ministers use lightly, but it is on the record that the Home Secretary thinks that this fee is huge. He said that, yes, perhaps we need to look again at whether we have the balance right. We clearly do not have the balance right. How can we have the balance right when, in effect, there is a surcharge of £640 per each child applying for their right to citizenship?
I am desperately disappointed. When the Home Secretary told the Home Affairs Committee that,
“we have to get the right balance”,
talked about the “huge amount of money”, said that,
“it is right at some point to take a fresh look … and it is something that I will get around to”—
which, as I said, did not exactly give a sense of urgency—and said, “I understand the issue”, I thought it suggested that the Home Office was finally accepting that it had to do something about this and that there were signs of movement here. It appears that those signs were an illusion. They were fine words, perhaps simply given to placate the Home Affairs Committee.
It is not enough just to say that the Immigration Minister met with Solange Valdez-Symonds from the Project last week. I know that, but a meeting is not enough. I hoped for an acceptance that the Home Office must take some action now, swiftly, and make a clear and firm commitment. In the end, I was asking only for a clear and firm commitment that the Home Office will look at this issue now before further injustice is done. That is not what we have heard tonight. I know that it is late, that many noble Lords will have gone home, and that noble Lords want to get on with the next business, but I am sorry—this is so important. The passion with which so many noble Lords have spoken suggests that we should test the opinion of the House, and I would like to do so.