Immigration

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I have been most grateful for the discussions that the right reverend Prelate and I have had on this subject, particularly around integration and community sponsorship. For all that we talk about the laudable Dubs scheme, very few people—the right reverend Prelate excepted—have made reference to this. It will integrate people into communities very quickly and smoothly; it is such a commendable scheme. I thank the Church of England, and indeed the Catholic Church, for the role they have played in it.

As for accommodation and destitution, of course we are not a country that would legislate to enable people to be made destitute, but what we seek through the consultation is quite broad. We do not want to pre-empt what the consultation might throw up. For accommodation, we have Home Office accommodation that we have used, and we have had to use temporary accommodation throughout the pandemic. I will be very interested, as I am sure the right reverend Prelate will, in what the consultation yields for us to consider.

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, if, as the Home Secretary asserts, the UK asylum system is collapsing, why is there such dysfunction in the Home Office that it cannot process an annual 20,000 to 30,000 claims—which is not overwhelming—efficiently and fairly? Is not the only outcome of penalising asylum applicants arriving irregularly—which is not illegal, so it would be a breach of the refugee convention—to create an insecure, impoverished group of vulnerable people who cannot be removed? How can that possibly help the situation?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The answer to the second question is that criminality is what yields the worst outcome for people genuinely claiming asylum. Either they do not get here because they drown at sea, or their money gets taken from them and they are left in a very precarious position. Therefore, the safe and legal ambition of the Home Office is to try to come down hard on criminals, while also protecting people who genuinely need asylum here. The noble Baroness asks about the claims, and why we cannot process them quickly. That is exactly what we are aiming to do through our new asylum system—through the one-step process—so that people cannot bring vexatious claims time and time again, including on the steps of a plane. We will be able process people much more quickly. This House has constantly pressed me on this, and I do not disagree: why can we not deport people quickly and why can we not process claims quickly? That is precisely what is outlined in our new plans.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord makes a very important point: we should not just say “violence against women”—we should say, “violence by men”. However, it is not always violence by men; it mostly is but not always. The Government are clearly in the middle of the Domestic Abuse Bill and all the provisions therein. I thank my noble friend Lady Newlove for bringing forward the issue of non-fatal strangulation, which seems to be much more at large in some sexual behaviour and, of course, often leads to death—it is often at the heart of domestic violence. We have done much on forced marriage and female genital mutilation, which are all particularly female-focused, of course. We have done much in the 11 years that we have been in power, and I pay tribute to my right honourable friend Theresa May, who was at the original inception of this.

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with all those who have called for a change of culture, attitudes and behaviour and better education for young men and boys—and indeed girls. However, will the planned new strategy on violence against women and girls have a comprehensive plan for how to get those changes? Secondly, in her foreword to the consultation on violence against women, the Home Secretary said:

“1 in 5 women will experience sexual assault during her lifetime”.


As my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece said, a recent survey found that almost every single young woman in this country—97%—had experienced sexual harassment. Is it not time to adopt towards sexual violence a version of the so-called “broken windows” policing, whereby early intervention aims to deter and prevent more serious crime?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

The noble Baroness will see some of the things that we have done in relation to perpetrator strategies and approaches, DAPOs, DAPNs and stalking protection orders. These are all measures to nip problems in the bud and prevent them from escalating into what could end up as full-on violence.

United Kingdom Resettlement Scheme

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Ludford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the planned (1) programme, and (2) timetable, for refugee resettlements under the United Kingdom Resettlement Scheme.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK Government are committed to resettling refugees to the UK and we continue to work closely with domestic and international partners to assess capacity for resettlement activity as we recover from the pandemic. This commitment, alongside a fair and firm asylum system, will ensure that we continue to offer safe and legal routes to the UK for vulnerable refugees who need our protection.

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, only 800 people were resettled in the UK last year, compared to 5,600 in 2019. This is against the UNHCR’s assessment of the global need for almost 1.5 million places. Why have the Government failed to fulfil their pledge of a new consolidated UK resettlement scheme to succeed the schemes closed a year ago? Will the Minister now give an assurance not only of 5,000 places here in the current year but of an ambitious 10-year commitment to resettle vulnerable refugees from Syria and other conflict areas?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am very glad that the noble Baroness recognises the extent of our efforts to resettle people who need our protection. She is right to point out that not many resettled last year, but of course we had, and continue to have, a global pandemic. To move people, unless absolutely vital, was not advisable at that time. However, it is vital that we continue to provide those safe and legal routes for people in need of our protection. Refugee resettlement will continue to be a core safe and legal route for those vulnerable people.

Health Measures at UK Borders

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick mentioned Norway. Have the Government considered emulating the successful Norwegian system, whereby only nationals and those with legal residence are allowed into the country at all, there is testing of everyone on arrival and seven days later, paid for by the state, and of course there is an excellent test and trace system? If the Government have not considered copying such a system, why not? May I just correct the Minister and, indeed, the Prime Minister on another matter? Being under EU law and the European Medicines Agency in the transition period could not and, indeed, did not prevent the UK doing its own thing on vaccines, as it took advantage of a national derogation.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I think it is fair to say that we were being pressed last year to go with the EU in its vaccination programme and we said no, and it was the right thing to say no. I am not going to harp on and make political points, but we did the right thing at the right time. I do not say that from a position of carping: we did the right thing at the right time; we procured at the right time; it was absolutely the right thing to do and we should be really proud of that.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 (Consequential, Saving, Transitional and Transitory Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Home Secretary is a keen proponent of the ending of free movement. One of her recent triumphant tweets coincided with articles in both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph about how outrageous it was that British owners of second homes in an EU country would have to get a Schengen visa for stays of more than three months. I have no idea why they have only just found that out. Of course, they are blaming the nasty, punishing, perfidious EU—although that was the known situation for third countries. There was a certain bitter irony in those reports. They were a salutary reminder that free movement, and its termination, is a two-way street—a curb on the liberties of Britons as well as on those of foreigners. That seems never to have been recognised by Brexiters.

Let us remember the huge contribution that the 4 million or so EEA citizens have made to every aspect of life in the UK, from health and social care, to business, to farming and horticulture, to the arts and much more. The same goes for UK citizens living in EEA countries. I am still reeling from the utter meanness of the Government in refusing to allow UK citizens living abroad beyond March 2022 to decide whether to move back here without facing the same hurdles to family reunion as migrants. I am still amazed that this Government could so persecute their own citizens.

The 64 pages of this complex SI, which Parliament cannot amend, perfectly illustrate the justification for our opposition to the huge and broad powers that the Government gifted themselves in Clause 4 of the Bill, which became Section 5 of the Act. Our Constitution Committee rightly called them “constitutionally unacceptable”.

The SI extends the hostile environment to cover EU citizens, except those who have been granted settled status by 30 June next year. Even the horrors of the Windrush scandal failed to prompt the Government to end the hostile environment that created so much pain for those victims.

There is much concern, which I share, about the position of EU citizens who have not applied to the settlement scheme by 1 July next year. Even those who have applied for settled status but have not received a decision will on that date lose their right to a job or to rent, as well as access to services such as homelessness assistance and benefits. That is of great concern. In the other place the Minister promised a written response to some pertinent questions raised about that situation, and I regret that we do not have that in time for today’s debate.

I would therefore like to ask the Minister very specifically about the compatibility of this SI with Article 18.3 of the withdrawal agreement, in the chapter on citizens’ rights. It says:

“Pending a final decision by the competent authorities on any application … and pending a final judgment handed down in case of judicial redress sought against any rejection of such application … all rights provided for in this Part shall be deemed to apply to the applicant”.


How is this SI compatible with the withdrawal agreement, in denying rights to all those who lack status on 1 July next year?

Finally, may I ask about the right to work in the Civil Service? The Explanatory Memorandum seems to suggest that while newly arriving EEA citizens will lose that right from January, some Turkish citizens will retain it. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell me if I have correctly understood that—and if I have, if she could justify why EEA citizens are second class in comparison with Turkish citizens.

Citizens’ Rights (Application Deadline and Temporary Protection) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, we are facing a perverse and peculiar situation. The Government have generously extended the scope of the settlement scheme beyond those exercising EU treaty free movement rights to those simply continuously resident here. Thus, echoing remarks he made in the other place on 16 June that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, cited, the Immigration Minister, Kevin Foster, said in a letter last week to Holly Lynch MP,

“the Government has made it clear we will protect the rights”

of EEA citizens

“who have made the UK their home, but may not be exercising a specific Free Movement right.”

He also said in that letter:

“an EEA citizen or their family member who is resident in the UK at the end of the transition period, but who does not have a right of permanent residence and is not exercising specific free movement rights … will still be able to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme by the deadline of 30 June 2021.”

In that and other sentences in the letter, he kept referring to “those resident here”, with no reference to having to be lawfully resident under the EEA regulations 2016. He affirmed that those people would have the right to rent and the right to work in the six-month period, but without the caveat that my noble friend Lady Hamwee cited from his remarks on 16 June about needing to be subsequently granted status. How that would work retrospectively is a mystery.

So the Government will apparently protect the rights of all EEA citizens and they want them to stay, but those promises from the Government have not been translated into the text of the grace period SI and in fact they set an obstacle course for the period from January to June next year for those not exercising treaty rights. Yes, they can rent, work and apply to the settlement scheme, but they will not be lawfully resident in those six months. What good is that? When the Immigration Minister said

“we want them to stay”,

he failed to add an honest “but we will make them illegal residents for six months”.

The Government should create new residence rights to apply for six months for all those covered by the withdrawal agreement and eligible to apply for settled status. It is deeply unfair and capricious to lead people to believe that their rights are fully protected until they get settled status when that is not actually the case. The Government could of course just correct that problem by making the test for the grace period SI simple “residence” rather than “lawful residence”.

Thus, my noble friend’s fatal amendment should be supported. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, gave very good reasons for doing so, notwithstanding the rather polemical remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

Finally, I would be grateful if the Minister could explain what changes the Government are making on the back of assurances referred to in the European Commission’s report of the recent meeting of the EU-UK joint committee. It says:

“The EU side further sought and received political assurances that under the UK settlement scheme, all EU citizens with residence status will benefit from the same set and level of rights as those guaranteed by the Withdrawal Agreement.”


Can the Minister explain what that paragraph means and what assurances have been given?

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

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The following Members in the Chamber have indicated a wish to speak: the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates. I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with everything that my noble friend Lady Hamwee has said. The Minister said that the arrangements that the Government have made are “reasonable”, but one has also to think of the reasonable expectation of British citizens who may have moved abroad, married, set up partnerships and had families with citizens from elsewhere in the EEA. They would have had no reason to suppose that the conditions and rules under which they did that would change—after all, the promise of a referendum in 2015 came somewhat out of the blue; it really was not expected. My noble friend’s amendment would accommodate fairly those reasonable expectations while meeting the Government’s apparent objection that they do not want a period which is unlimited.

The Conservative manifesto for the 2017 general election promised to legislate for “votes for life” for Britons living abroad. That has not happened, but, at the time, the Conservatives rejoiced at scrapping what they called the previous Labour Government’s “arbitrary” 15-year rule. I think that one could also describe the Government’s three-year rule in this scenario for UK citizens living in the EU as arbitrary.

Mr Chris Skidmore, who at the time was Minister for the Constitution, said:

“British citizens who move abroad remain a part of our democracy and it is important they have the ability to participate … Our expat community has an important role to play.”


One can deploy that statement in this context. These were valuable sentiments about Britons living abroad. I would transfer them to say that British citizens residing elsewhere in the EEA should have the right to participate not only politically but economically and socially in this country. To put them now in a quandary of having to decide by March 2022 what their family circumstances with parents and children could be in the decades ahead is an unnecessary, arbitrary and unreasonable imposition. Twenty years is a highly reasonable proposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I have no intention of delaying the House as I have made my views on this pretty clear. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, has been very clear and precise. I believe that the Government are sticking their heels in for no good reason.

I should make it known that this morning there was a power outage at the police national computer centre in Hendon—run, of course, by the Home Office. As a result, police forces across the country were not able to access the police national computer. I do not need to explain to noble Lords that power outages of this sort have a serious effect on police operations. Following the technical issue that affected our voting on 30 September and this issue today, surely those EU citizens who request physical proof should be able to receive it like any other citizen.

The noble Lord, Lord Oates, tabled the amendment in lieu to deal with the cost element that the Minister brought up on Report. I agree with him, because non-EEA citizens now receive physical proof, so I really fail to understand what the up-front costs that the Minister referred to are. It is an existing scheme. EU citizens deserve to be treated equally and the amendment deserves to be accepted. This is a matter not of policy, but of process. Non-EU citizens can obtain physical proof of settled status, so EU citizens will be the only group without that physical proof. I fail to understand why the Government are unable to accept the compromise amendment that now deals with the financial question.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Oates’s excellent speech, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Polak, with whom I worked on the EU Justice Sub-Committee. The Minister referred to people being able to use their smartphones for this purpose. A friend of mine could not open the link in the email she received confirming her settled status. She had to go to an internet café to do so. I am not quite sure what went wrong there.

I will refer to a report published yesterday by the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union in the other place called Implementing the Withdrawal Agreement: Citizens’ Rights. I do not know whether the Minister has had a chance to look at it, but it backs the amendment so that EU citizens should have

“the option of … a physical document to evidence their residency status … in addition to their digital status.”

I am very pleased indeed that it has given that support. It refers to a number of reasons why this should be accepted. It talks about

“examples of people getting assistance from unregulated immigration advisers to make their application, then the third party retain the log-in details necessary to access the platform”

and make a

“charge to send on details to employers.”

I hope that is something the Home Office might look into.

The committee also talks about how, because the online product

“remains linked to the physical document, such as a passport, used by the individual in their application … If the passport is changed, then the applicant has to update the online system.”

That is an issue that will recur. The committee also says that

“accessing the online profile is not straightforward for people not fluent in IT”—

something we have discussed a lot on this subject—so they

“end up relying on the pdf document they receive informing them that a status has been granted”.

The Minister referred to that being put in the desk drawer. It is, of course,

“not a substitute for actual evidence of status”,

but unfortunately it might be used by some people who are confused by the online environment, which is a recipe for some difficulty.

Then, of course, the person asking the EU citizen to demonstrate their status has to understand it. The Minister referred to support for the holders of settled status. I am not sure whether she plans to give lots of tuition to prospective landlords, employers and so on. She talked about the NHS. It was not quite clear what that system will be. The Public Law Project has listed nine steps that a third party such as an employer would have to take to check the status of an EU citizen. It is worth quickly mentioning them:

“Request the code from the applicant … Wait for an email with a link to arrive … Open and read the email … Search, identify, and open the correct website”,


because apparently there is no link in the email,

“Start the checking process … Enter the share code from the email … Enter the applicant’s date of birth … Enter their company name”—


I am not sure what happens for an individual landlord—and, lastly,

“Check that the photo on their screen looks like the person applying for the job and keep a secure copy of the online check, either electronically or in hard copy.”


All this requires reliable access to the internet. If you do not have access to wi-fi, which you might not in an empty flat that you are showing it to a prospective tenant, a person would have to rely on mobile signal, which is honestly not great, even in London.

Also, the committee’s report says that apparently

“the lack of a physical document has contributed to the confusion over eligibility for benefits, because claimants have been unable to show a photo ID card showing their status … it was unclear how some decisions have been made by the DWP in terms of using settled status as a proof of eligibility.”

It is quite a serious point that even the DWP does not seem to have got this right.

The report says that

“the option of a physical card would give an additional layer of safety against criminal attempts to ‘hijack’ someone’s status.”

We are being warned all the time about cybersecurity, and the dangers of malware, hacking and so on. The report says that, in a recent survey of 3,000 EU citizens, apparently more than 10% had been asked

“to provide proof of settled status, and that the digital only status was deterring some from applying.”

It was actually putting them off. The report continues,

“physical proof came right at the top of concerns of EU citizens: 89% said that they would like an option, not compulsory, of physical proof.”

Having gone through all that evidence, it is hardly any wonder that the committee in the other place backed this sincere, reasoned request for EU citizens to have the option of a physical document. I know the noble Baroness cares about people and people’s lives, but it really seems the Government ought to find a way to accede to this request.

Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, the following Member in the Chamber has indicated their desire to speak, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I add my regrets to those expressed by other noble Lords on the loss to this country of the European arrest warrant. I was in the European Parliament when it was born, nearly two decades ago, and my last initiative as an MEP was to write a report on reform of the European arrest warrant, in which the former Home Secretary, Theresa May, expressed great interest before making some unilateral UK amendments about its implementation. It is not a perfect instrument, but it is a lot better than the alternatives, particularly the 1957 extradition convention.

I am focusing on Amendments 4 and 4A. In Committee, the Minister told us:

“The Government have no intention of specifying countries likely to abuse the system to political ends.”—[Official Report, 5/3/20; col. GC 364.]


First, Governments can, and sometimes do, change. Secondly, intentions, however sincere when made, do not always survive unscathed. Presumably the Government intended to act in good faith in respecting the EU withdrawal agreement that they negotiated, signed and recommended to Parliament and the country, but now they want to give themselves the power to override a key part of it. They no doubt intended to keep their promise to uphold high standards of food safety and animal welfare. If they reach a trade agreement with the United States, imports from there will not comply with those standards and our own farmers will become uncompetitive, putting pressure for deregulation here.

As my noble friend Lady Hamwee mentioned, there is also apprehension about what pressure might be exerted by potential trade partners. Outside the EU, the UK is more vulnerable because it is only one country. As part of a bloc of 28, we could say: “Sorry, we’re bound by EU law, we can’t give you an individual concession, so there is nothing we can do, chaps.” We are much more exposed to that pressure if trying to reach a bilateral trade agreement with a single country.

Those are the reasons of principle why we need individual statutory instruments, country by country. There are also practical reasons. By insisting that this House takes an all-or-nothing approach, the risk is that the House feels compelled to vote down an SI that contains some perfectly respectable countries and one dodgy one—my noble friend gave some examples. This would waste more time than if the Government had the good sense to take them one by one. It is quite puzzling why they are being obstinate in refusing to see the good sense of that. It would be far more efficient, effective and respectful of human rights and the transparency of parliamentary scrutiny to allow Parliament to focus on one country at a time. That need not slow down the process at all; it could possibly streamline it.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Are there any other Members present who would like to contribute at this point? If not, we can move on. The next speaker is the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich.

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

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I have little to add to the magisterial introduction made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to Amendment 27A, but I will emphasise the deficit of the Bill as it stands especially with regard to Roma women with settled status who look after their children full-time and who apply for British citizenship. The underlying problem—in real life rather than in Home Office rules—is that while their children are little, the mothers have a weak connection to the labour market, like other full-time mothers. I am surprised that this Government should prejudice mothers in this way.

So, because they cannot prove they were exercising treaty rights—according to the Home Office, which does not accord with the European Commission’s interpretation—by showing that they have comprehensive sickness insurance, their application fails. I remind your Lordships that Theresa May, as Home Secretary, recognised this injustice and promised to do away with the requirement for CSI in these cases. So it is very odd that updated Home Office guidance in 2020 changed the application process to direct caseworkers to check whether such applicants had CSI. An undefined power of discretion has not proved much use in rectifying the injustices to full-time mothers. It is shocking that the Government have not honoured the earlier commitment.

In her letter to us of 29 September, the Minister said that the Government’s policy is that CSI is not required to obtain status under the EUSS. Nevertheless, the grace period SI maintains CSI as a requirement for lawful residence during the grace period as a student or self-sufficient person, such as a full-time mother, under the saved EEA regulations because, according to the Home Office, this is consistent with EU law. This is not the European Commission’s view, and it is not right or just that applications are turned down because there is no CSI.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I will go over very similar ground to that raised by my noble friend Lady Hamwee.

The background is that, under the withdrawal agreement, the UK is obliged to create a grace period following the end of the transition period. During this grace period, EEA citizens have the opportunity to apply by a deadline for a new immigration status through the EU settlement scheme, as it is called in the UK.

As EU rights will end on 31 December, the Government need to create an interim status for those who have yet to acquire their new status via the EU settlement scheme—hence the grace period SI. As we know, it sets the deadline for applications to the settlement scheme as 30 June next year, but the Minister said last Wednesday, on the first day of Report, that it would also

“protect the existing rights of resident EEA citizens and their family members during the grace period.”

What does “existing” mean? A fact sheet published in July also used that adjective when it said that the power in Section 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 would be used—as has now happened with this grace period SI—to make regulations

“to protect the existing rights of those individuals who are eligible to apply to the EU settlement scheme”.

As the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, did in Committee on 16 September, the Minister said last Wednesday that she could reassure us—here, I repeat a quotation given by my noble friend—that

“EEA citizens’ rights to live and work in the UK will not change during the grace period, nor does the grace period SI change the eligibility criteria for the EU settlement scheme. Therefore, there is no change to the Government’s policy”,

which, as we have learned, was set by Theresa May,

“that comprehensive sickness insurance is not required to obtain status under the EU settlement scheme.”

Therefore, so far we have established two government statements: first, that the existing rights of those eligible to apply to the EU settlement scheme will be protected; and, secondly, that acquiring settled status will not involve a requirement for CSI. So far, so good. Ministerial assurances seemed to accord with Article 18(3) of the withdrawal agreement, which provides that, pending a final decision, all rights provided for in the citizens’ rights section of that agreement shall be deemed to apply to the applicant. That means residence rights and all related equal treatment rights.

However, things then get somewhat murkier. Last Wednesday, the Minister added a caveat—again, quoted by my noble friend—when she said:

“People need to exercise free movement rights to benefit from the savings in the grace period SI. We are not inventing rights of residence to save them, because that is not what the withdrawal agreement says.”—[Official Report, 30/9/20; cols. 243-4.]


When I checked back, I saw that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, had explicitly said on 16 September in Committee:

“The grace period SI maintains”


comprehensive sickness insurance

“as a requirement for lawful residence during the grace period for a student or self-sufficient person under the saved EEA regulations, as is consistent with EU law.”—[Official Report, 16/9/20; col. 1340.]

I will not go round all the houses again, but I beg to differ with that last comment, as I believe that the Commission is pursuing infringement proceedings—it is taking a while; it launched them in 2012—over the Government’s wrong interpretation of CSI as meaning private health insurance. In this country, it should mean accessing the National Health Service. However, for current purposes, I will just concentrate on the first part of the noble Lord’s statement: namely, the proposal that during the grace period students and self-sufficient persons will have to show that they have CSI—that is, private insurance—in order to qualify as lawfully resident.

The remarks confirm that in their current form, limiting a legal basis to live in the UK to those who were “exercising treaty rights” in accordance with existing EEA regulations by the end of the transition period, the regulations appear, as my noble friend said, to exclude a large cohort of people from having a legal basis to live in the UK during the grace period and while their application is pending. In general, a worker and someone who is self-employed will benefit from legal protections, but those not economically active by the end of the transition period will likely be unable to do so, with the consequences that my noble friend enumerated—possible removal, the denial of NHS treatment, being put out of a job, or whatever.

Even where someone successfully lodges an application with the EU settlement scheme, if they are awaiting a decision beyond the end of the grace period and are not in scope of the regulations, they will not have the legal protections it offers. Therefore, someone with a complex EUSS case could be without a legal basis to remain in the UK for many months beyond the grace period.

As a taste of things to come, a case has been brought to my attention where parents seeking to renew their five year-old son’s British passport were told that the EU citizen father had to supply evidence of having had CSI—I repeat: private health insurance—when he was a student many years ago.

To recap where I think we are, we have three government statements: first, that the existing rights of those eligible to apply to the settlement scheme will be protected in the grace period; secondly, that CSI is not a requirement for acquiring settled status; and, thirdly, that CSI is a requirement for some people to have lawful residence in the grace period. We can add in a fourth, given in the course of this Bill: that discretion will be exercised—we have not heard how—in regard to the absence of CSI in assessing eligibility for citizenship.

I am struggling to make sense of how those four statements fit together and to understand how the Government really intend to treat people. So far as I can see, it leaves matters as clear as mud and full of contradictions and obstacles. It seems that the Government are set on making a person cross a crocodile-infested river of legal uncertainty over residence before they can reach the safe shore of settled status.

Therefore, I back up the questions that my noble friend asked the Minister about the practical implications for people who do not fall within the scope of the regulations. Will there be further regulations to cover those eligible for settled status but not in scope of the regulations? When they apply for settled status, will they be told, “Oh no, we don’t need to ask you for CSI, but in the meantime, under the grace period SI, you need CSI”. It is like being on a chessboard, although I can think of some other analogy.

I have one last question. Are the Government willing to consider changing the draft regulation from stating a requirement to have been “lawfully resident”—which, as we know, according to the Government’s interpretation is an extremely loaded term—to a requirement simply to have been “resident”? Given that this definition operates for only six months, save in cases where a settled status application has been made, this might be a simple, workable solution that could save a lot of people a lot of anxiety. This sounds like an awfully complicated and arcane situation. It is, and in the real world a lot of people are affected by it. They are represented by the the3million group, which, again, is doing sterling work, although, as far as I know, even it has not got its head round it, so I do not know what hope there is for someone like me.

I hope the Minister can bring some coherence to this situation, or display a willingness to look again at the regulations under the grace period SI to see if the Government are creating unnecessary hurdles for people who were told they would not need CSI or settled status when perhaps applying later for citizenship. It seems to be creating an awful lot of unnecessary hassle.

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

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

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

It cannot be very easy to live off £5.66 per day. In an unfamiliar country, where one may not know the language, the temptation to take a paying job in the black economy must be huge. It is not the asylum seeker’s fault that the queue for a decision, in which he is stuck, is so long. It is the system that is unfair to them. It is as inhumane as it is inefficient, and because it is inefficient, it is inhumane. The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the other amendments in this group, all of which I support, would make it marginally less inhumane.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I want to take up just two themes that wove through the debate in Committee. The first was about UK practice compared to that of other European countries. The Minister said in her response to the debate in Committee that

“no other European country has adopted anything close to a time limit as short as that which is proposed in these amendments. Acknowledging the complexity of securing arrangements for the return of people with no legal right to remain, the European Commission itself recently proposed that a new minimum detention period of three months be put in place.”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1019.]

I fear that the Minister might have got tripped up by the Brussels phenomenon known as “minimum maximum”, whereby the formulation “maximum of not less than” is part of a directive—or maybe a word got lost from the Minister’s speech, because the Commission’s proposal for the recast of the returns directive—a directive to which the UK of course has not opted in—actually reads:

“Each Member State shall set a maximum period of detention of not less than three months and not more than six months.”


In other words, member states should set a maximum period of detention in their national laws. That maximum period can be between three months and six months. There is no requirement in existing or proposed EU law for individuals to be detained for a minimum of three months, which the Minister’s words might have implied, no doubt inadvertently.

The second theme I will mention is the Government’s contention that detention is a necessary part of efficient and effective immigration enforcement. The report on immigration enforcement from the National Audit Office in June, to which reference was made in Committee, said:

“Immigration Enforcement … cites an increase in individuals making late or spurious claims for asylum … It believes many of these claims are used to delay removal but noted in 2019 that it did not have a strategy across the work of Immigration Enforcement and the rest of the Department to mitigate the abuse or to tackle the backlogs being caused by associated delaying tactics. We have not seen any systematic analysis designed to help the Department understand why claims are increasing, or to rule out if Immigration Enforcement’s own actions might have contributed to the increase.”


So my conclusion is that the Government have a lot of work to do across the whole field of immigration enforcement and removals. While they can rely on indefinite detention, they are not doing the work necessary to improve their systems to avoid unnecessary detention. To that end, a limit of 28 days would focus their mind on the other tools they need to have at their disposal and return detention centres to the genuine immigration removal centres that they should be.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, I intend to be brief, as this has been a long debate and the time is getting on. Amendment 20, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, along with her other amendments in this group, are ones that I support. My Benches will support the noble Baroness when she divides the House. The amendment would limit detention to a maximum of 28 days. As we have heard, people are often released into the community anyway. As the noble Baroness said, that begs the question of why they need to be detained in the first place.

Huge strain, stress and anguish are placed on those who find themselves detained with no clear idea of when that will end. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark said, the Government have had ample opportunity to bring forward an amendment of their own to deal with this issue. I will point out that there is not a single government amendment at this Report stage, and I do not think—I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong—that there were any government amendments in Committee either. Sadly, that says to me that the Government have learned nothing, and that the hostile environment is alive and well. Despite the lateness of the night, I hope that the amendment is carried by a large majority.