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

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Earl of Dundee

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 67 in my name and those of other noble Lords who will be speaking. I am grateful for their support. I express support for Amendment 63, moved so well by my noble friend Lord Rosser. Once again, I am grateful to the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, of which I am a patron, and to Amnesty International UK for its briefing.

Amendment 67 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to encourage, promote and facilitate awareness and the exercising of rights to British citizenship among EEA and Swiss nationals. It would also introduce a positive duty to confirm information known to the Home Office that is relevant to establishing a person’s right to citizenship. I am told that at present such information is all too often not forthcoming—a particular problem for many looked-after children—but there appears to be a greater readiness to check and act on such information when it confirms that there is no entitlement to citizenship.

The intention of the amendment is to shift the Home Office’s mindset, in the spirit of Wendy Williams’s Windrush report. That mindset resulted in the active discouragement of members of the Windrush generation from exercising their rights to British citizenship. As we have heard, there are real fears that the lessons of that review are not being learned when it comes to children of EEA and Swiss citizens who were born in the UK or who have grown up here from an early age. Research by the European Children’s Rights Unit, funded by the Home Office, indicates that Roma children, who are an especially vulnerable group, may be particularly at risk.

More generally, PRCBC gives the example of Matteo, who was born in the UK to Italian parents. He has lived here all his life apart from occasional visits to Italy and a gap year in continental Europe. When he became an adult, he discovered to his great distress that he was not regarded as a British citizen when he was refused inclusion on the electoral register for the general election and was twice refused a British passport. Before contacting PRCBC, he had been given poor legal advice that he should apply for settled status under the EU settlement scheme and be naturalised as a British citizen at a future date. Having established what his situation was, PRCBC was able to help him register his entitlement to British citizenship under the 1981 Act. No one had previously advised him of this right, and he had suffered serious mental distress as a result. A young man in this situation should not have to rely on the chance of finding his way into an organisation like that. How many are not finding their way to such organisations?

Can the Minister explain what exactly the Home Office is doing to proactively encourage the exercise of the right to register citizenship, both directly and through local authorities, to ensure that children and young people such as Matteo are not missing out on their chance of registering as citizens? What steps is it now taking to ensure that no one who is entitled to register as a British citizen is wrongly channelled through the EUSS as an immigrant without being informed of their existing right to register as a citizen? Are any specific steps being taken to ensure that Roma children have the information and support they need? Also, can she give us some idea of the number of children overall likely to be affected?

These are important questions. The right to British citizenship of an unknown number of children is at stake. I and others emphasised the importance of citizenship in moving an earlier amendment, and there was a lot of support in the Committee for citizenship’s importance. The answer to these questions will give us some idea of the importance the Home Office attaches to it, and how far it is genuinely willing to shift its mindset in the wake of the Windrush scandal and the Lessons Learned report on it. In that report, Wendy Williams wrote of the need for “deep cultural reform”. The response to these amendments will serve as an indicator of whether the Home Office is genuinely committed to such reform.

[The Earl of Dundee (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on protecting rights to British citizenship. We have already debated her first one, Amendment 68. This urges that applicants should not be disadvantaged just because registration costs might become too much for them to afford. We are now considering her Amendment 67, which advises that our system should set out to be proactive, helpful and encouraging towards applicants. Correspondingly, Amendment 63, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, correctly argues that in the first place, steps should be taken to raise awareness of available British citizenship rights under the British Nationality Act 1981. I hope the Minister is able to endorse these recommendations.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Earl of Dundee

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, in connection with EU withdrawal, and as already intimated, there are perhaps two key aspects concerning our protection of children. First, that the current level of cross-border co-operation should not diminish. Secondly—which this group of amendments highlights—that UK domestic law and its deployment should continue to be guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

With regard to the first, can my noble friend the Minister reassure us that to safeguard children the right steps are being taken so that the UK will remain part of relevant cross-border interventions, including Europol and the European arrest warrant agreements?

The second focus is on United Kingdom law protecting children. Here, two inconsistencies already obtain. For, while subject to EU legislation, our own UK legal provision still falls short of that covered by EU law on children. In relation to UNCRC there is an even wider gap. That is since, although guided by it, none of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has been incorporated into UK domestic law at all—hence within Amendment 70 the exhortation that it should now come to be.

However, in spite and irrespective of such apparent anomalies and omissions, after EU withdrawal clearly our principal aim must be to avoid any slippage of existing UNCRC standards. What plans does my noble friend now have to ensure that we do avoid this?

Yet at the same time, does he concur that we ought to go much further; thus not just guarding against the erosion of standards; but in properly maintaining them also seeking to build upon and improve them?

For, rather obviously, sustained cross-border co-operation as well as improved national legislation protecting children are both in the interest of all states. To mutual benefit, therefore, this consideration in turn reflects the positive opportunity for attaining much better results for protecting children’s rights.

All the more so is that the case with us since, although leaving the European Union, we will remain within Europe’s consensus on human rights and the rule of law represented by its far larger affiliation of the 47 states of the Council of Europe, in which parliament, along with those here tonight, including the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Foulkes, and my noble friend Lord Balfe, I have the honour to serve.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 70, in my name, supported by the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Russell, and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, to whom I am grateful. However, my remarks are also relevant to other children’s rights amendments in this group, some of which I have signed. I am grateful, too, to the Children’s Society for its assistance, and to all the children’s organisations that have worked so hard to ensure that children’s interests are not forgotten as we debate the Bill.

I have already made clear my strong opposition to the removal of the Charter of Fundamental Rights from retained EU law, and colleagues have made clear the damaging impact this is likely to have on children. Amendment 70, which is a probing amendment, goes further than other amendments in this group in that it provides for the full incorporation of those parts of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child ratified by the UK. The convention covers all aspects of a child’s life and sets out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights to which all children are entitled. Key principles include the best interests of the child being a primary consideration in all actions concerning children, and children being able to express their voices in all matters affecting them.