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

Debate between Baroness Pitkeathley and Baroness Smith of Newnham

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 30th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, in the previous group of amendments, my noble friend Lady Hamwee suggested she did not want to do the Government’s job for them. On this occasion, I beg to disagree with her and hope that maybe I can begin to do the Government’s job for them. In Committee, there were criticisms of certain amendments being put forward because they related only to EEA nationals. In particular, the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Lister of Burtersett, said that if they had been able to they would have created amendments that were holistic, but they were told that such amendments would be out of scope because the Bill is limited to immigration responding to the context of Brexit.

My starting point on reading this amendment was simply to ask why. If one had a normal debate in which one could intervene, particularly at an earlier stage—in Committee, not on Report—the obvious thing would simply have been to jump up and intervene on the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, moving the amendment and ask why. The question of a cap for EEA nationals raises all sorts of questions which I hope the Minister will say are not acceptable in the context of the Bill, because why should there be a cap on EEA nationals? Whether you believe in cakeism—as the Prime Minister does—or, like the noble Lord, Lord Horam, you are trying to find a way to meet the concerns of those people who want to limit immigration and those who want a more open approach to immigration, there is surely a question of why there should be a cap on EEA nationals. I can only assume that it is because those noble Lords who tabled the amendment could not bring in a cap more generally.

It will come as no surprise that, from these Liberal Democrat Benches, I am not in favour of a cap. In particular, some of the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lord, Lord Horam, seem to relate to questions of migration much more generally. We are talking about the context of the transition period ending on 31 December and a change from 1 January. Are we really anticipating that, all of a sudden, millions of EEA nationals who are not currently in the United Kingdom will want to rush to the United Kingdom to fill jobs? I do not think we are. Surely, if we are interested in fairness, as the noble Lord, Lord Horam, talked about, we should think about everybody who might want to come to live and work in the UK. Why should there be a separate status in that sense for EEA nationals?

I cannot see a case for this amendment, and I hope the Minister might, for once, actually agree with me.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, is not speaking on this amendment, so we will go directly to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.