Iraqi Interpreters

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I say, I agreed with the premise of the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. We must also guard against the people whom we settle here not being thoroughly vetted, because, clearly, we have a security obligation to this country as well, but the premise in relation to those who have given their lives and time for us in war-torn countries is absolutely right.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, during the Recess, I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina on a trip led by Colonel Bob Stewart. During the Bosnian war, one of his interpreters was killed, he believes, for uttering the words that he was speaking. That demonstrates clearly how vulnerable interpreters are, whether in Iraq or Afghanistan. ARAP might be a great scheme, but it is too slow, and the communication between the Home Office, the MoD and the FCDO has been extremely protracted. What can the Minister say about speeding up the processes and ensuring that the Iraqi eight and any Afghan interpreters can be dealt with more swiftly so that their lives are not put in further jeopardy?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, due to the very nature of a war-torn country, these processes are not swift. We have gone above and beyond what is necessary to try to get as many people out as quickly as possible. I, too, have been to Bosnia and I recognise the points that the noble Baroness makes.

Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I wholeheartedly concur with the noble Baroness on consistency of approach across government. It is no time for there to be differences in what departments are saying. In terms of the people that the noble Baroness refers to, I am going to read from the policy statement because it clarifies it:

“The scheme will prioritise … those who have assisted the UK efforts in Afghanistan and stood up for values such as democracy, women’s rights and freedom of speech, or rule of law (for example, judges, women’s rights activists, academics, and journalists)”.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has just stated what the policy will do. Can she tell us when we are going to get details of the resettlement policy? At the moment, there are thousands of people in hiding with no idea of how they are going to get out of Afghanistan and what they need to do to give this Government the right information to enable them to get out.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My honourable friend Victoria Atkins has started to outline some of the detail of what we are doing so far, and I think more will come. The policy statement makes very clear the types of people we will be prioritising—that is, the people who are most vulnerable to the Taliban.

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

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

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

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. The concept of no recourse to public funds is one that causes significant difficulties to a small number of people, but for those individuals it can be very significant. Quite how many people fall under this provision is perhaps a little bit unclear. I cite a paper on no recourse to public funds written by Professor Catherine Barnard, a colleague at Cambridge University—and I declare it as an interest that she is a colleague. She quotes Stephen Timms at the Liaison Committee in May raising with the Prime Minister the issue of destitution as a result of no recourse to public funds. The Prime Minister is reported to have said:

“You have raised a very, very important point if a condition of their leave to remain is that they should have no recourse to public funds. I will find out how many there are in that position and we will see what we can do to help.”


Does the Minister know whether the Prime Minister has yet been able to answer that question of how many people fall into this category? Will he tell us what plans the Prime Minister has to help individuals who have no recourse to public funds? I suspect that his briefing does not include answers to those questions, so I confine myself to reiterating the concerns raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Lister of Burtersett. That is really to say that, while ideally the provision for no recourse to public funds should be looked at in its entirety, in the confines of this Bill we understand that it can only be the case for EU nationals. However, in the context of the Covid crisis, it has become clear that individuals can face very significant difficulties that are not covered by the normal provisions for seeking benefits precisely because they fall under this condition of no recourse to public funds. Will the Government think again on this issue? It relates not to people who are coming to seek benefits, who simply say that the United Kingdom is a country where they think they are going to be able to benefit from the system. It rather relates to individuals who are already here, exercising their rights as EU nationals. It is a finite number of people, and surely they deserve our help and a degree of generosity.

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

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

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

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, that was a very thoughtful and interesting contribution. I agreed with some of it, in particular the accolades paid to my noble friends Lord Rosser and Lord Hunt. They made such excellent speeches that I can be brief, given that many Members wish to speak today, and I have some sympathy for both Front Benches regarding the length of our sessions at the moment, not least on this Bill. However, I want to draw attention to one or two of the issues that have arisen.

Mention has been made a number of times of the Migration Advisory Committee. I heard Professor Bell on the radio yesterday making the perfectly reasonable case that, as my noble friend Lord Rosser excellently pointed out, it is important that care workers be paid more and respected more. I am fully in favour of trying to tackle head-on the understaffing, underpaying and undervaluing that currently constitutes the general attitude, despite all the sympathy often exuded towards those working in the care sector. However, Professor Bell eloquently made the point that I want to make: that you can get almost £1 an hour more working in general retail than in residential care, despite the enormous challenges arising during the Covid pandemic, as spelled out by the noble Lord, Lord Patel.

Here is a thought. I have it on the good authority of Professor Bell that, according to the Migration Advisory Committee, which concluded its main survey work in March, the consequences of the pandemic are twofold. First, yes, there will be greater unemployment, and that will be felt differently in different parts of the country and will therefore have a differential impact. I do not expect people to move for £8.70 an hour—which is the average pay in residential care, because that is the minimum wage across the country—given that they could not even afford to pay the rent; that is, if they have not been evicted by the time they get there because the moratorium has been lifted. We therefore have to have some common sense here.

There is no sign of the pay increase that should be taking place now, and the oven-ready deal promised a year ago has not yet emerged from the AGA—when it does, it will probably be grossly undercooked—so we will not have a solution. It is no good Professor Bell —I am very happy to debate him on this—going on the radio or producing a 650-page report saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if the Government coughed up the money so that local authorities can pay increased rates?”, and that we should protect ourselves from exploitation. That is not happening. I pay tribute to the noble Lord who has just drawn attention to what I said in Committee about private equity investment in this area.

My noble friend Lord Hunt made the important point that there will be a cut-off point in three months’ time. Yes, of course we should be emphasising this and supporting people to take up jobs in social care. We should be training them properly and giving them a career pathway so that they can see the way ahead. Their career pathway is somewhat blocked at the moment by the fact that, the higher up you go, the more likely the Government are to allow someone from outside the country to come in and take the job. I tried to explain that on a previous occasion, but I do not think I was eloquent enough. I will use this example: you can come in and drive a BMW but you cannot come in to drive an elderly Robin Reliant that has rusted to the point where the brakes do not work and the doors are falling off. That is what happened in social care, as illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. There is death and fear within the sector. You will not cure that in three months, nor persuade other people to move house to take up jobs because they have just been made redundant from quite well-paid employment in areas where they hope to take up training and other opportunities.

I therefore appeal for everybody, including the Migration Advisory Committee, to get real. I appeal to the Minister to go back to government—it is not her fault but that of the Treasury—and say, “In the next three months, we as a Government will not solve this problem. We will not be able to encourage sufficient people to take up these jobs. We know that the turnover rate is massive”—it is even greater than my noble friend Lord Rosser said—“that the vacancies exist and are unattractive, and that some people will be highly unsuitable.” So, for goodness sake, let us have a continuing review. That is all Amendment 3 asks for: to get this right and ensure that the consequences of closing the door to the other 27 members of the European Union on 31 December do not have a disproportionate impact on the care of those we are supposed to care about. This is why this debate is taking place, because of the new situation arising from the way we are treating those from the European Union and the EAA. Were that not to happen, we could have a more rational debate, as appealed for by the previous speaker, on how we adjust to ensure that we are not reliant in key areas —including, apparently, butchery—on drawing in people from across the world. That includes, of course, doctors and nurses, who, under the programme that has been laid out, will be allowed to be recruited into the country.

There are such contradictions and we are in such a cliff-edge position that I have gone on longer than I intended, because the more I think about it, the more passionate I am to ask for a bit of common sense.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 3. Personally, I have quite a lot of sympathy with Amendment 30, put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, which she referred to as “tougher and more radical”. I voted to remain in the European Union precisely because I recognise the importance of free movement of people. I agreed with virtually every word said by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I shall be brief, because I am aware that we are only on group 2 and the target is to get to group 14 this evening.

The social care system is in crisis. All noble Lords who have spoken have referred to the difficulties that it faces—problems that have been made clear by your Lordships’ Economic Affairs Committee over the years. The Minister should not have to answer for the social care system. She is not the Minister for Social Care; she is Minister of State in the Home Office. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, is right: the equivalent of the Migration Advisory Committee should report to not just the Home Office but to the Department for Education, the department of health, the Treasury and BEIS because they all need to understand the skills deficits in this country.

The specifics of Amendment 3 are about the social care sector. This Bill is in front of us today because of Brexit but the social care sector is highlighted because of the Covid crisis. Today’s amendment would have been necessary even without six months of a global pandemic, but that pandemic has made clear to everybody both the importance of social care and the huge numbers of EU and third-country nationals in this country looking after some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

It cannot be right to say that those people should not be here and should not be working. We value people being here. Although the noble Lord, Lord Horam, is undoubtedly correct that we need to ensure that British people are adequately skilled, can we really assume that we will suddenly go in the next 14 weeks from no training to saying that someone who is unemployed can take on a job in the care sector that is being vacated by an EU national who has gone home and will not be replaced by another EU national? There might be medium and long-term aspirations for change, but we must accept that the change on 1 January will be immediate.

For that reason, I ask the Government to take this modest amendment very seriously. In her letter to noble Lords earlier today, the Minister referred to Amendments 3 and 30. She stressed that the MAC is a “world-class, independent body” and that it will report. Well, it reported yesterday and expressed its concern about the social care sector. If she cannot give us an answer today, will she come back before Third Reading with some recommendation of how she plans to reconcile her letter to your Lordships, the MAC’s report and the importance of ensuring that, on 1 January, the social care system is not even more vulnerable than it is already? I strongly support Amendment 3.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 3 in particular and Amendment 30. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. I want to follow up on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I remind my noble friend the Minister that she will have encountered in her previous life many of the problems that are being rehearsed by noble Lords speaking to Amendment 3. I remember being a local MP. For the first 13 years, I did not have a jobcentre in my constituency; only in the last five years was I able to visit a local jobcentre in my constituency. When we got the figures on unemployment, I always asked for the figures on job vacancies. Inevitably, the majority of them were for social care workers and were the hardest to fill.

I know from personal experience of two care providers for young people requiring social care—there was Leonard Cheshire initially, then Wilf Ward, both of which do marvellous work; I pay tribute to them—that they are unable to match the basic starting salary of someone in a supermarket who may want to come off the current unemployment list to take any job. Stacking shelves in a supermarket is less demanding, less physically onerous and pays more. I do not know whether my noble friend the Minister shares my pessimism but I do not foresee a rush of people—who in any event may not be suited to be a carer. The clue is in the name: you have to care, to be incredibly patient and to be quite physically fit. Many will simply not qualify.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in one of the most thoughtful debates on the Bill. I want to reflect first on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, who said that had it not been for the pandemic, we might not be having this debate. I honestly think that we would have been doing so in some form or other. I am not taking issue with what she said but I want to make a further point.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

I said that we would have been having this debate but the pandemic made it worse.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

In that case, I agree with the noble Baroness. However, the main part of my point was related to the issue on which my noble friend Lady McIntosh challenged me. She asked whether, given my background, I could see the problems to which noble Lords are referring. I can absolutely see them. In fact, in 2005, when I was a new leader of a council, and David Cameron a new leader of the Opposition, he asked me what the biggest challenge was for local authorities. Straight off, I said social care, and, 15 years later, that remains the case. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, referenced those who care voluntarily. There are so many that they save the state billions of pounds a year for the work that they do without being paid. I therefore join noble Lords in paying tribute to this sector, which has done so much, particularly during the pandemic. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, people in social care have given and lost their lives to the fight against the disease.

I turn next to points about the Migration Advisory Committee. First, I turn to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, which he has made before, about the contradictory nature of what we are debating. In one sense, we highly value our social care workers and in another, as someone else said, they earn less, in some cases, than retail workers. That is the challenge at the heart of this: social care needs to be paid decently and seen as a decent career path for people to want to go into it.

I could stand at this Dispatch Box and give my view on the silver bullet that would sort this all out, but I am afraid that I cannot. It is not that it is above my pay grade but, as my noble friend Lord Horam said, this is a challenge for every department and government —and, actually, every one of us. I had a chat with my noble friend Lord Hodgson before this debate; he is probably sitting there very frustrated because he did not put his name down to speak, and I know that he would have wanted to talk about the report that the MAC issued yesterday on the review of the shortage occupation list. One of its key findings is that senior care workers, nursing auxiliaries and nursing assistants should be added to the UK-wide shortage occupation list. The Government want to take time to consider carefully what the MAC has said—as noble Lords I have said, it is a 650- page document—before we take any final decisions, and we will of course respond in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, challenged me for a timescale, and “in due course” is about as far as I can go at this stage. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, talked about the devolved Administrations’ part in all this. Of course, it is a reserved matter. The new system will work for the whole of the UK and we have a national advisory group, with which we are engaged on the proposals, but it includes the Welsh NHS Confederation, Social Care Wales, NHS Scotland and Scottish social carers.

I turn to the amendments at hand. Amendment 3 returns to issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in Committee, but it also incorporates a requirement to report on immigration routes for social care workers, which was raised during Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and goes to the essence of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in Committee, about a specific route for the social care sector. During our debate in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, rightly highlighted the significant shortages in the social care sector, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, amounting to around 120,000 vacancies. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, also talked about the high turnover, which I think I said was 31%, but he thinks might be even higher.

We must keep it in mind that that is the situation despite the fact that EEA and Swiss citizens have had, and continue to have, free movement rights up to the end of this year. The noble Lord also highlighted the fact that the social care workforce is made up of approximately 83% British citizens, 7% from the EEA countries and about 9% from non-EEA countries. What struck me as interesting about those figures is that a higher percentage of people from non-EEA countries than from EEA countries are working in social care, even though they have no dedicated route to do so. Currently, while social care workers do not meet the skills threshold, a range of other immigration routes are available to them which provide a general right to work, such as dependants, those on family routes or youth mobility.

As part of the UK’s new points-based immigration system, we are expanding the skills threshold, which will bring jobs such as senior care workers within scope of the skilled worker route. Increasingly, people of all nationalities will be able to benefit from this offer providing they meet the other requirements, such as salary threshold. However, I want to be clear that, as my noble friend Lord Horam points out, the Government do not see the immigration system as the solution to all issues in the social care sector. I think there is now general acceptance across your Lordships’ House that that is the case.

With that in mind, we are working alongside the sector to ensure that the workforce has the right number of people to meet increasing demands, with the right skills, knowledge and approach to deliver quality, compassionate care. The Department of Health and Social Care has launched a new national recruitment campaign called Every Day Is Different to run across broadcast, digital and social media. The campaign highlights the vital role that the social care workforce is playing during this pandemic, along with the longer-term opportunities of working in care.

The Government have also commissioned Skills for Care to scale up capacity for digital induction training provided free of charge under DHSC’s workforce development fund. This training is available for redeployees, new starters, existing staff and volunteers through 12 of Skills for Care’s endorsed training providers. The Government are committing record investment to the NHS, including the NHS long-term funding settlement, which has now been enshrined in law. At the Budget, the Chancellor outlined over £6 billion of further new spending in this Parliament to support the NHS. This includes £5.4 billion to meet our manifesto commitments of 50,000 more nurses, 50 million additional appointments in primary care, more funding for hospital car parking and establishing a learning disability and autism community discharge grant to support discharges into the community.

As my noble friend Lord Horam pointed out, we are also investing in social care. DHSC is providing councils with access to an additional £1.5 billion for adult and children’s social care in 2021. We have also announced £2.9 billion to help local authorities in response to the coronavirus crisis. The Department of Health and Social Care is also working closely with Skills for Care to help employers train new recruits and volunteers and to refresh the skills of its current workforce.

In Committee, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Masham of Ilton, highlighted that working in social care, especially when caring for people who have severe disabilities, requires much more than just technical skills. I totally agree. Social care jobs will not be for everyone. However, it is a sad consequence of the current pandemic that many people have lost their jobs. While not all of them will have the necessary caring skills, I think there are many people in the UK who really do care, and it is vital that we take the opportunity to emphasise the importance of social care work and ensure that it is a rewarding job for people.

The view that migration is not the solution to the challenges faced by the care sector is supported by the Migration Advisory Committee. My noble friends Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Lilley referred to that in Committee. We need to make changes to the way we train, recruit , attract and, crucially, retain staff in health and social care, but without making changes, the immigration system will continue to be used as a failsafe to maintain a broken system that relies on bringing people in on minimum wage and holding down wages.

The Government continue to commission and fund a range of training opportunities to help recruit people into the sector and develop leadership within social care. This includes the Think Ahead programme, which has taken on more than 400 applicants since it was launched in 2015. It trains graduates to become mental health social workers. There is also the workforce development fund, which helped nearly 2,800 establishments to support nearly 14,500 learners in 2018-19. This fund will continue to focus on key priorities in future.

Turning to the specifics of the amendment, it is of course sensible that policies are kept under review—something the Government stand by in the current system and will ensure continues under new arrangements. We already have the MAC, and its advice has been accepted by all types of Government over many years. I know that some noble Lords do not share my views on the expert advice provided by the MAC, but surely there cannot be disagreement that the MAC has repeatedly considered the needs of the social care sector, as referenced by the report yesterday.

We should not take for granted the Government’s own extensive engagement with stakeholders across the whole of the UK, and indeed the critical role that this House plays in scrutinising policies and intentions. So I do understand the intent of the noble Lord’s amendment to ensure the protection of a vital sector. We already have a world-class independent body with new autonomy to review any part of our immigration system, as referenced today, in the last 24 hours. I hope the noble Lord will therefore feel that Amendment 3 is not necessary and will be happy to withdraw it.

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[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.

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[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Oates, was absolutely right. Do we want to be a society based on compassion and concern, or to become a nation without a beating heart on humanitarian issues of this kind? As far as the European Union is concerned, there is of course a special challenge because citizenship means citizenship, going right back to classical times, but we took away what people in good faith had come to understand as their citizenship and the rights that followed from it when they went to make lives, futures and careers overseas. They never dreamed that they were breaking links with their home base. Many of them wanted to return at some point and of course, as we have heard from one speaker after another, many have families rooted here for which they feel responsible; they want to be able freely at a time of crisis to return and succour the needs of such people.

It is altogether good news that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has moved this amendment; it represents the kind of Britain in which I want to live, given the values behind it. Do we believe that families are fundamentally important psychologically, for mental health more generally, for physical health and to the well-being of citizens, or not? Do families provide a unit of stability in the midst of an increasingly complex, demanding and unpredictable world, or do they not?

What are we doing with this Bill? It is almost impossible to understand how the Government have got themselves into this position. I hope we stand very firmly behind the noble Baroness this evening, or whenever it is we are allowed to vote on this matter.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. That probably comes as no surprise to noble Lords.

I am going to do something that I normally try not to, and that is to rehearse one of the arguments that has been going on for years. For five of the six years that I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House we have been talking about having a referendum on leaving the European Union, having that referendum, and then trying to deal with the fallout from it. The debates that we were having in October 2015 have been rehearsed again and again. I have tried not to rehearse them; I recognise that the UK voted to leave, that we have left and that at the end of the transition period things will be different.

However, one of the points made during the debates on the European Union Referendum Act 2015 was the importance of enfranchising EU nationals resident in the UK but also UK nationals resident elsewhere in the EU. That was suggested precisely because those groups of people were disfranchised yet were potentially going to—I will not use “suffer”, as I realise that that could be seen by some as inflammatory—be more clearly affected than many of the rest of us who are not actively using our rights as EU citizens. British citizens who have opted to use their rights under EU law to marry, reside and exercise the right to family life as EU and UK citizens should not have those rights torn away from them.

We have heard many individual cases this evening, but I will take a slightly more general approach. When an EU national is working abroad in another EU country, family members also have the right to reside and work in that country, regardless of their nationality. That has applied to UK citizens. The Minister puts forward the idea that somehow people have 15 months to make a make-or-break decision: “You can come back now or stay away. You can’t come back with your spouse, your children, your in-laws, your close family members.” Is that really what people thought that they were voting for? Taking back control surely is about us making the right decisions. They do not have to be xenophobic or exclusionary, or choices that say no to people. Why should we make it harder for those British citizens who have chosen to live in other countries—because they were exercising their rights and living with people they loved—to be back in the United Kingdom after March 2022 than it will be for EU citizens with settled status? We should at least be as generous to our fellow British citizens who have used their EU rights as we are to EU citizens who will benefit from settled status. Can the Minister please talk to her colleagues in the Home Office and make the Government think again?

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that the Government have already seen what course of action they should take. I can see absolutely no sensible reason for the proposals being as they are and, apart from the issue of acting in a civilised way towards individuals, I cannot believe that so many people or such high costs are involved, so I cannot understand why so far the Government have been stuck on this issue.

As we know, the purpose of the amendment is to preserve the rights of UK nationals living in the EEA and Switzerland who return to live in the UK in future to bring with them or to be joined by non-British family members on the same terms as at present. Unless this Bill is amended, British citizens who moved to the EU or EEA while the UK was a member of the EU will lose their right to return to their country of birth with a non-British partner or children, unless they can meet financial conditions beyond the reach of many. If they need to return to look after an elderly parent, thousands will now have to choose between returning alone and leaving their families behind or abandoning their parents to stay with their non-British families in the EEA. Nobody should have to face such a choice.

The problem is that the Government are using the end of free movement to make these British citizens for the first time meet the minimum income requirement for family reunion. The MIR has been roundly criticised, because it is so high that 40% of UK workers would not be able to reach it, and because of the Catch-22 rule that the non-British partner’s income can be taken into account only if they have been working in the UK for six months. How can they get into the UK if they cannot satisfy the MIR? The MIR is harsh but what makes it doubly unfair to apply it to this group of British citizens is that the change is, in effect, retrospective. When they left their homes in the UK to move to the EU or EEA, those people were safe in the knowledge that if they established a family while they were abroad they could bring them back to Britain, and the British parents they left behind had the same expectations.

It also leads to the perverse result that the British Government’s approach involves discrimination against its own citizens: while British citizens who have moved or will move to the EEA before the end of 2020 will face these restrictions, EU citizens who have moved or will move to the UK before the end of 2020 will not. They will have the right under the withdrawal agreement to bring existing family members here for life, as well as keeping their existing rights to return to their country of birth with families they have made in the UK.

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[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 14 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which seeks, of course, to offer security to EEA children in care in the UK and those entitled to care-leaving support. The noble Lord and his colleagues have set out the case for the amendment very clearly and I certainly do not want to repeat their comments, but I want to add my support as someone who worked in mental health services for many years—decades, actually—originally on the front line. My recollections of the vulnerability of those children remain with me even after what is perhaps four decades.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for her helpful letter explaining the Government’s position. I welcome her assurance that protecting the rights of EEA citizens who are resident in the UK has been the priority since the outcome of the EU referendum, and that the Government have been working with local authorities and others to ensure that vulnerable children obtain immigration status. It seems that the Government agree with the sponsors of this amendment that it is essential that children in care and care leavers have secure UK status.

The Government may have identified a weakness in our amendment—that it would not in fact provide these children and young people with the clear status we all want them to have—although I was very much reassured by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I hope the Minister can clarify this point, because it really is of fundamental importance.

If needed, I hope the Government will table their own amendment at Third Reading to make sure that the Bill fulfils what are not only our objectives, but theirs. I think the Minister would welcome the fact that the amendment places a duty on local authorities to identify which children in their care are at risk of losing their status when the UK leaves the EU, and therefore which children need support to get through the hoops to achieve settled status. This is so important, because local authorities do not routinely collect nationality data on children in their care. They may assume that none of their children are from the EEA and will not take any action on this important issue. It is easy to anticipate that, through no fault of their own, these children could end up undocumented.

The evidential burden for settled status is another problem, particularly when people are up against a deadline. By reducing the evidential burden, many of these vulnerable children will be rescued from having undocumented status after the transition period. The Home Office has previously stated:

“Children who do not apply because their parent or guardian did not submit an application on their behalf can submit a late application. This includes children in care and care leavers”.


If the Home Office is committed to the principle of late applications for these vulnerable children, why not support that principle through this amendment? Or does the Home Office have in mind that these children be given pre-settled or temporary status? If so, Ministers will know that this only defers the problem of lack of documentation when they come to apply for permanent status. I would be really grateful if the Minister clarified this point.

Finally, the numbers of children involved are perfectly manageable: 5,000 looked-after children and 4,000 care leavers across the whole of the UK would need to apply to the EU settlement scheme. My preference would be for a government amendment, if necessary, meeting the precise objectives of this amendment, to be tabled at Third Reading. If, however, the Minister is unable to agree to work with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and others to generate the right amendment for Third Reading, if necessary, I hope that he will press this amendment to a vote, and I will certainly support it.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I can be brief, because this amendment has cross-party support, but I have a couple of specific questions for the Minister. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, I did not read the amendment as declaratory. My reading was that looked-after children should be given settled status. I assume from the Minister’s letter of earlier today and the comments on the declaratory scheme that the problem with Amendment 14 lies in proposed new sub-paragraph (1):

“is deemed to have and be granted indefinite leave to remain”.

Perhaps “is deemed to have” suggests that that person will not have any documentary evidence.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, suggested, if that is indeed what the Minister understands by the declaratory nature of the amendment, it would be helpful if the Minister considered a rephrasing in a government amendment that would have the import of granting settled status to looked-after children and care leavers. Then, they would have settled status and documentary evidence, since the only reason that such people would end up in a Windrush-style situation is if the Government left them there.

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

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Hamwee in her opposition to the hostile environment in her Amendments 42 and 50—an argument eloquently and powerfully made by her. The hostile environment has turned our citizens into border guards and made us suspicious of our fellow citizens, even those legally in the UK. On right to rent, it is the safest option for landlords to rent to white people, or British passport holders if landlords go beyond seeing the white face in front of them.

The evidence suggests that the Government’s right to rent scheme is being seriously enforced against only those who require a visa to enter the United Kingdom and not those who are allowed visa-free entry. This again calls into question whether the Government are really serious about ending the free movement of EEA and Swiss citizens, or indeed the free movement of B5JSSK citizens. The only alternative explanation is that there is no way of legally enforcing right to rent against these citizens.

When I spoke to the first group of amendments a week ago, I referred to A Short Guide on Right to Rent, a publication in which the Home Office advises that landlords can establish a B5JSSK, EEA or Swiss national’s right to rent by checking their passport, which will have no stamp to show when they entered the UK, together with evidence of the date they last travelled to or entered the UK.

I have had the opportunity to go back to make sure that the Home Office advice I referred to was up to date. It is even worse than I thought. I quote:

“Acceptable evidence of entry to the UK may include (but is not restricted to) one of the following, or a combination of: An original or copy* of a boarding pass or electronic boarding pass for air, rail or sea travel to the UK … An original or copy* airline, rail or boat ticket or e-ticket … Any type of booking confirmation (original or copy*) for air, rail or sea travel to the UK”.


There is an asterisk by the word “copy” and an explanation that

“a copy can be a hardcopy such as a photocopy or an electronic copy such as a screenshot”.

The Government are clearly not serious about enforcing right to rent for citizens of these countries, as landlords have to see not even the original ticket, boarding pass or travel booking but an easily forged photocopy or screenshot.

Not only that, the guide goes on to say:

“Although these individuals only have six months’ leave unless they obtain a visa, landlords who have correctly conducted a right to rent check will obtain a statutory excuse for 12 months and must schedule a follow up check … before the end of the 12-month eligibility period if the individual is still occupying the accommodation.”


The Home Office’s own guidance talks about landlords being required only to do a follow-up check six months after EEA, Swiss or B5JSSK citizens should have left the country. At that point, the EEA citizen could produce another ticket, boarding pass or booking showing that they entered the UK within the last six months, and the landlord could then rent for another 12 months.

The question has to be asked, and I would like the Minister to answer this: why are the Government insisting on strict enforcement of right to rent against those who require a visa to enter the UK but apparently relaxed about those from B5JSSK countries and, at the end of the transition period, EEA and Swiss nationals? The Government either are not serious about enforcement of right to rent against these citizens or accept that it is unenforceable against them.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments but particularly propose to speak to Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I declare an interest: I have a property that I rent out. It is let by agents, in part precisely because the idea that I as an individual know what I should be looking for, in terms of right to rent, becomes really quite difficult. I will not discuss that any further.

The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talks about the so-called hostile environment. My noble friend Lady Hamwee pointed out that it is now known as the “compliant environment”. There should never have been the concept of a hostile environment. We heard earlier, at the end of the previous group of amendments, the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, uttered by my noble friend Lady Hamwee, reminding us of the importance of our values. As the United Kingdom prepares to end the transition period, it is as important as ever that we abide by our values that are open and tolerant.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, seems not to be with us, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I essentially support all the amendments in this group, but in particular it is crucial to think about the EU nationals resident here for maybe five years or more who expected to get settled status and then were given pre-settled status. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee so eloquently outlined in her opening remarks, 41% of those EU nationals seeking status of some sort have so far been given pre-settled status.

Maybe members of Her Majesty’s Government are always fully on top of every detail of every document they are ever required to look at, sign or agree. Whenever they get a piece of paper—assuming they even get a piece of paper and it is not some digital communication—they presumably know where they put it and they will know that on some future date, perhaps 23 July 2023, they will have to say, “Now I’m due to have my settled status. Oh Government, please, what do I do now?”

Every Minister might be able to do this, but I suspect that many of the 1.4 million people with pre-settled status might be more like the rest of us: they would know at the back of their minds that they needed to do something. It is a bit like doing a tax return, but at least with an annual self-assessment, one is reminded of it constantly—not just by emails from HMRC but by regular newspaper and television advertisements telling people the date by which they have to do their annual self-assessment tax return. People with pre-settled status are not going to have a single date: each of them will have a different point at which their five-year residence is up and needs to be turned into settled status. Amendment 45 is therefore absolutely crucial.

The Minister may argue that each individual should take responsibility for themselves—this may be the government view. I am sure that everyone who has sought settled status and has so far been told that they can have only pre-settled status is trying to take responsibility for themselves, but there may be all sorts of reasons why they do not necessarily remember the precise date by which they need to regularise things. It could be because of individual specific circumstances. As the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, mentioned, it could be because of the Covid crisis. There are all sorts of reasons people may not be able to deal with paperwork in the way they would normally be able to do. There may be a family bereavement—there could be a whole set of reasons why people have not thought through what paperwork is required.

There is, however, something to be said for the Government sending appropriate reminders. Surely one of the lessons of Windrush is that it is hugely important not only for individuals to have details of their own status but for the Government to have them too. If the Government are moving so much towards digitisation—so that all settled status documentation will be digital, unless the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Oates is passed—it ought not to be beyond the wit of the Government to have a mechanism for alerting people, six months out, to what they need to do to convert their status. If the Minister is minded to demonstrate Her Majesty’s Government’s compassionate and flexible approach—not something we very often see from the Home Office—that would be one way of going about it.

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, requesting information about what would count as appropriate for a late application is most valuable. EU nationals who have used their rights of free movement in recent years would be fully aware of the requirement to seek settled status. But people who have lived in the United Kingdom for many years—who were maybe born here, to parents who are not British but who had the right to be here because of some other European citizenship—may not think to apply. Maybe they have lived all their lives in the United Kingdom and never stopped to realise that they did not have the rights of residency that settled status would give them, without which they may not even be permitted to be in this country. Unless the Government has an effective way of identifying a whole range of people eligible for settled status but who did not realise that they needed it, some flexibility is required. A tolerant country would surely allow these people to apply late when their status becomes clear.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I offer the Green group’s support for all the amendments in this group. We have already had a strong, informative debate, so I will not take up very much of the time of your Lordships’ House.

I wish to address a couple of points. On Amendment 46, on comprehensive sickness insurance, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, powerfully and clearly set out the discriminatory effects of this surprising—possibly illegal—application of the rules. I am particularly concerned about the differential gender impact: invariably, it is women in caring situations who do not have their own income who will be affected by this.

I want to speak briefly to Amendment 44 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. This can be described only as a modest and reasonable request for transparency, democracy and scrutiny from the Government. It asks them to show what their plans are for looking after the group—that will inevitably, by definition, be made up of more vulnerable people—affected by the inability to apply for settled status within the deadline. Debating this amendment in the other place, as well as in your Lordships’ House, would be a chance for scrutiny, as well as constructive engagement, the pointing out of flaws and making suggestions for improvement. Will the Minister consider this? We can assume, I hope, that we will receive many assurances from the Government about how they intend to use the right to late applications. The Government clearly already have in mind how this is going to look, so surely it would not be that difficult to set it out on paper.

I want to briefly follow on from what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, said about technology. These days, what people have to do practically and how they manage their lives is increasingly digital. Maybe you have put a reminder to yourself in a digital calendar to do something. The deadline is there and you have done the right thing, but we all know that sometimes technology goes wrong: computers die and people lose passwords. The Government should be able to ensure a steady recording and reminder process. They do not perhaps always have a great record when it comes to IT projects, but this should not be very difficult or very costly. It would provide people with a security blanket, which is what all these amendments seek to do. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said in her introduction, we are talking here about enabling people to exercise the rights to which they are entitled. Surely that is something that the Government want to make as easy and practical as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 53 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, which is also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and Amendment 73 in my own name. I thank her for offering her support before I had even spoken to it; that is much appreciated.

To be speaking on these two amendments in what is Universal Basic Income Week around the globe has both an irony and an extra importance. Universal basic income would be an unconditional payment going to everyone accepted as a member of our society. No recourse to public funds, together with universal credit, is the extreme other view: conditionality that can deny people the most basic support that they need and human rights, such as the right to food, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, just referred to.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, cited what I believe are figures from Citizens Advice showing that 1.4 million people are on visas, or have received visas, that may leave them having no recourse to public funds and therefore, in the age of Covid-19, intensely vulnerable. This is not just a human rights issue; it is an issue of public health. If you face your children going hungry and you have Covid symptoms but you could go to work, what do you do? That is a very difficult situation and one that potentially puts everyone’s health at risk. As other noble Lords have said, this is a very modest measure to apply in the special circumstances of Covid-19 when so many other things in our society have had to adjust and flex.

However, I want to speak chiefly to Amendment 73, which, as I alluded to earlier, is part of a package with Amendments 71 and 72. Together they create a situation where the end of freedom of movement could not be brought in until people who were newly affected by the hostile environment were freed from that environment. As I said previously, this is something that Liberty has done a great deal of work on, and I appreciate its support on this matter.

In the previous debates, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, spoke about the situation where people—most likely women—trapped in abusive relationships are in a very difficult situation if they cannot access evidence of their status. Of course, this is also true if they have no recourse to public funds and, over many years, I have spoken to many people—particularly workers in refuges—who have been left greatly distressed by their inability to help people in the most desperate need because they are in a situation where they have no recourse to public funds. People make choices to remain in abusive relationships because their other option is hunger and homelessness—a situation where they are also highly vulnerable to abuse.

So we need to think about what kind of society the UK is. I believe that we should be a society with a universal basic income; one where everyone has access to the support that they need. However, in the meantime, Amendment 73 would spare people being newly affected by the hostile environment of “no recourse to public funds” and spare them the impacts of this.

I am well aware that, with the Minister, we are on something of a merry-go-round and back to saying that this is discriminatory. Of course, I would absolutely welcome it and be delighted if this was to be applied to everybody affected by “no recourse to public funds”. However, in the meantime, I have put down the amendment that I have been told is what is allowed within the scope of the Bill. “No recourse to public funds” is now a dreadful sentence being inflicted on innocent people through no fault of their own. That is true under Covid and all the time, and I suggest that this is something we cannot allow to continue.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, both of these amendments seek to do something that I think very much aims to right the injustice of a million people—100,000 children, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, was saying—having no recourse to public funds. For many of them, in a time of Covid, that means no food and potentially no heating, which is a danger to the most vulnerable in terms of, “Are they going to starve, are they able to get food that they can then cook from a food bank?” Because one of the real difficulties that you hear so often from people running food banks is that people say, “Please can I have some food that does not need to be cooked because I cannot actually afford to cook anything”. So we are talking about people who are going to be very vulnerable.

The hour is late, and I do not wish to detain the House for very long, but we have already heard that this is about social policy, public health and human rights. What sort of a country are we if we allow children to go to school who cannot be fed and say, “Well, I’m terribly sorry, you can’t have free school meals because your parent has no recourse to public funds”? Whatever choices the parents have made—whether they could or could not go home to another country—the child under 18 has no such say; their rights need to be taken into consideration.

These amendments are limited. We are talking about a time of global pandemic. The amendments are not asking for people to be taken out of “no recourse to public funds” in perpetuity, but the current context is that the economy is in a very, very difficult situation and many people who thought they had a job—perhaps on an hourly basis or possibly a zero-hours contract—may find there are no hours and they may not have been furloughed. Can the Government not find it in their heart to deal with these people fairly? It may be a question of immigration law saying that, normally, it is not right for these people to have recourse to public funds—whether that is right or not is for a wider debate—but, in the narrow context of EU nationals who find themselves still in the UK and unable to access public funds in the current context of Covid, please can the Government think about acting?

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

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, said that the Minister would find this somewhat like an echo chamber—and I confess that when I looked at these two amendments and thought about whether I would speak on them, I wondered whether I might be repeating myself. I remember speaking on many occasions since 23 June 2016, at various stages, about the rights of EU nationals and of individuals. In particular, I have contributed to debates on amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I pay tribute to her for the persistence with which she tables amendments to piece after piece of legislation, trying to hold this Government to account and remind them of the importance of doing the right thing.

These amendments are about the rights of citizens. We are not talking about people who are saying, “Maybe I would like to change my nationality; maybe I would like to become a British citizen.” We are talking about people being able to register their right as citizens. The Minister might not think that is terribly important. She might think, particularly about an EU national with settled status, “They don’t need to worry. Their rights will be so guaranteed in the United Kingdom—a country whose values of liberal democracy, human rights and the rule of law are second to none.” However, if a member of Her Majesty’s Government can say from the Dispatch Box in the other place that the Government are willing to go against international law in a “specific and limited” way associated with the withdrawal agreement, how can people possibly have certainty about the rights of EU nationals with settled status? People need guarantees; they need certainty. Perhaps the Minister will understand why we feel it is so important to raise these issues and probe them again—because the Government do not necessarily always act in the best interests of the people they are meant to serve, or of the most vulnerable.

Children in care certainly should not have to pay a fee, which will undoubtedly be unaffordable. Nor should anybody be expected to pay a fee of more than £1,000—three times the cost of processing the right to register their citizenship. If this country really wants to go global and demonstrate its values, surely one way to do that is to ensure that the rights of the most vulnerable are secured—and one way of doing that is to make sure that we are not effectively profiteering from the costs of registering citizenship.

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to pay a tribute to my noble friend Lady Lister for the way in which, as has just been pointed out, she has consistently fought on these issues through Bill after Bill, and debate after debate. She has a firmness of resolve that is to be envied. I am also particularly glad that we heard the right reverend Prelate speak in this debate. He spoke with his usual incisive analysis, and, much more importantly, with his usual decency and humanity, which seem to underline his whole approach to public affairs.

In this debate, we are not just talking about citizens who should be enabled to establish their rights. We are talking about vulnerable, individual people. We are talking about children. We hear a great deal from this Government about our desire to be an independent nation, standing on our own and demonstrating to the world what life should be about. What kind of Britain are we trying to portray? As an older man, I find it almost inconceivable that difficulties such as the price of registration should be used as a means of deterring a number of applicants. I also find it deeply sad that the nation that we should be in—where we are compassionate, where we are almost consumed with concern for the vulnerable, where we want them to establish their rights—is replaced by an impersonal policy of this kind. I find it incredible that we even have to look at a situation like this. It is not a Britain of which we can be proud. It is a Britain that must be raising doubts, all over the world, among all those who have fought and struggled for human rights, decency and civilised values. These are not decent civilised values that we are hearing here, and we need to ensure that this is put right.

Immigration: International Students

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I appreciate that within statistics we can say all sorts of things. However, it is not a myth about the Indian students. People who come here and use services and infrastructure for more than a year are counted as migrants.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, at present, the number of international students is clearly more than 100,000. If the Government persist in their commitment to keep immigration under the tens of thousands, does that mean that there is no scope for increasing the number of international students, for which there appears to be cross-party support as it would benefit the UK economy? I refer to my interests as recorded.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

There are well over 100,000 students. In the 2015-16 academic year, 438,000 students enrolled—almost half a million—and visa applications sponsored by universities are 19% higher than they were in 2010. There is no limit on the number of international students who come to this country, and we welcome them all.

Refugees

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, like other contributors to this evening’s debate, I welcome the report from the APPG and thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for bringing this Question for Short Debate this evening.

Like the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, I found the report and the contributions eye opening. This is clearly an issue which ought to be much more the subject of public thought and debate than has been the case. We have talked about the Syrian refugees who were being brought to the United Kingdom, and the former Prime Minister was clear about bringing people over from the camps. That was a laudable aim, but we have not talked sufficiently about what we do to integrate refugees once they are given that status.

In September last year, the present Prime Minister said at the leaders’ summit on refugees:

“We must ensure refugees can live with dignity and self-sufficiency, as close as possible to their home countries, to deter them from making dangerous onward journeys, and to enable them eventually to return home and rebuild”.


That all sounds absolutely laudable. However, what are Her Majesty’s Government doing to ensure that those individuals and their families who are not rehoused, rehomed or resettled near to their home countries and who make it to the United Kingdom and are granted refugee status are indeed able to live with dignity and self-sufficiency?

Being awarded refugee status, as noble Lords have said, ought to be the start of something new and hopeful, but for many refugees that is not the case. As my noble friend Lord Scriven pointed out, the starting point for most asylum seekers is not being accorded refugee status—as is the case for the Syrians under the resettlement programme—but may be a detention centre. The very name “detention centre”, for somebody fleeing for their life, sounds like an unfortunate place to start. We then ensure that those people, who might be highly skilled, talented, and who might have been professionals in their own country, cannot work; that has been brought up on a regular basis by my noble friend Lord Roberts, and I suspect that it may come up again this evening.

We do not allow asylum seekers to work and we give them a small amount of money; are we really treating them with dignity? Once they are accorded refugee status, as noble Lords have already pointed out, they have 28 days to claim benefit, which they will not get for six weeks, and to get new accommodation, which will be difficult. If you do not have references, do not speak English and have just arrived and have no contacts, how do you do all those things? Finding accommodation is difficult at the best of times for people who speak English and know how to work through the rules and regulations of this country. If you are new and you do not have advice, how do you do that?

It is extremely worrying that the APPG report talks about the difficulty of getting ESOL training and about the apparent cuts, despite a government commitment to increase provision of language training. Could the Minister tell the House what provision is being made and how far the provision of English language training is being thought about as part of a strategy for integrating refugees?

Finally, on health, the report notes the difficulty of getting access to GPs. That is very much the start of primary care. However, if people have fled difficult situations, they may have mental health issues, post-traumatic stress disorder or a whole range of complex medical issues that need to be dealt with. Many of those are difficult to talk about, even in one’s mother tongue. If you do not speak English fluently and do not have the ability to express yourself in English, what provision is the NHS able to give to ensure that refugees are able to get adequate training and that interpreters are available? It is a second best, but at least it would be of some benefit in getting adequate healthcare.

In sum, there is a question about how we treat asylum seekers before they are given refugee status and how we treat refugees once we have given them asylum. Under the Geneva Convention on Refugees we have a duty. But there are also moral obligations: duties of hospitality. Do Her Majesty’s Government believe that they are delivering on those?

Brexit: Acquired Rights (EUC Report)

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the report by the European Union Justice Sub-Committee. I did not serve on the committee and so I can say that it is a splendid report. It would be easy simply to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, has said everything that needs to be said and sit down, but, needless to say, I have a few questions that I would like to raise with the Minister.

It is often suggested that debates are timely, as was said at the start of the previous debate on the Middle East; it is always said that the debate is timely, but this is beyond timely. For the past year, Members of your Lordships’ House, Members of the other place and ordinary citizens in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the European Union have been crying out for answers to questions about the rights of EU nationals resident in this country and UK nationals resident elsewhere in the European Union. It has been apparent to almost everyone that some of these questions could be dealt with unilaterally and could have been dealt with last summer. However, Her Majesty’s Government chose not to do that.

After a year, some proposals were published last week. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said that the Government have not formally replied to the committee’s report, but we now have the government paper on safeguarding the rights of citizens. It has been six months since the committee produced its report, during which time men, women, husbands, wives, children, extended families have been unclear about what the future holds. One of the biggest difficulties since June 2016 has been the mantra that we kept hearing that, “Nothing changes until the day we leave”. However, everything changed on 24 June 2016 for people who were living in one country but with family in other countries. All sorts of questions have been raised again and again, and we still do not have many answers. The paper brought forward last week on safeguarding the rights of citizens does not go very far in dealing with the uncertainty that has been raised. It goes a little way—I give it a cautious welcome—but not very far.

Last year the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, introduced a debate from the government Back Benches on the rights of EU nationals. He asked: what is the problem? Surely there is a way of dealing with the rights of EU citizens resident in the United Kingdom. There appeared to be only one problem at that stage. I thought, and it was muttered at the time, that perhaps it was the former Home Secretary, who then became the Prime Minister, who was the one person who might have had the ability to say that we would secure the rights of EU nationals. Recently, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has been reincarnated as a journalist and editor of the Evening Standard, has suggested that Her Majesty’s Government wanted to secure unilateral rights for EU nationals and that the one person who refused to do that was Theresa May.

It is therefore with reluctance and perhaps schadenfreude that we listened to the Prime Minister’s words last week when, on introducing the paper on Safeguarding the Position of EU Citizens Living in the UK and UK Nationals Living in the EU, she stressed, “we want certainty”. So does everyone else; the difference is that we have all been saying it for a year. She went on to say:

“I have always been clear that I want to protect their rights”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/6/17; col. 302.]

So do we all; the difference is that none of us individually was able to change government policy. The one person who could have been clear and made decisions a year ago was the Prime Minister.

It is good to see the safeguarding paper, but it is rather little and rather late. The proposals are an improvement on the uncertainty that has dogged people for a year, but it is far from the generous offer that was being heralded. At best, it gets down to the “fair and serious” that has been suggested more recently, but it still relies on reciprocity. Certainly over the last months and the last year, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, pointed out, many people will have received letters, emails and pleas from UK nationals resident in other EU countries saying, “What about us? You keep talking about the rights of EU nationals in the UK. Don’t you care about us?”. Of course we do, but reciprocity raises certain issues.

The only way there will be a reciprocal deal is if there is a negotiated solution for withdrawal. At the moment, the European Union expects that the rights of its citizens should be dealt with by the Court of Justice of the European Union. In its paper, the British Government seem to suggest that cannot be the case and that any decisions would be taken by UK courts. How are we going to get to a solution that allows reciprocity and justiciability that will not leave UK citizens and EU citizens uncertain and insecure?

There are some welcome elements of the paper, particularly that EU citizens will no longer have to prove that they have had comprehensive sickness insurance. That is one of the slight peculiarities at present about proving they have the right to be here and have been here for five years. But the tests of residency remain rather unclear. Will the Minister explain to us what the streamlined processes and light-touch approach the Prime Minster has talked about mean in practice? How will continuous residency be shown? Can we be assured there will be no more 84-page documents?

What will the cost be? Getting British citizenship is prohibitively expensive. One of my cousins is married to a German national. She has not taken British citizenship because it is simply too expensive. Many people are in that position. It is often suggested by those who have perhaps not thought about the cost, “Why don’t people just take British citizenship?”. It is because it is time-consuming and expensive, and people have assumed they have not needed to. For those EU citizens legally resident here for five years, who we understand from the Government’s document will be given the right to remain—so indefinite leave to remain or settled status—will it be possible for them to do that free of charge, or at a minimal cost, perhaps akin to getting a British passport, rather than going through the costs we have seen for residency rights or taking citizenship?

Will the Minister tell us what is meant in the safeguarding paper by,

“these rights will apply to all EU citizens equally and we will not treat citizens of one member state differently to those of another”?

I ask that because three nationalities are currently treated differently: citizens of the Republic of Ireland, citizens of Malta and citizens of Cyprus, the latter two being Commonwealth citizens. At present, if you are a citizen of Malta or Cyprus, you can vote in local elections and European elections but also British general elections; if you are an EU national other than from Malta, Cyprus or Ireland, you do not have the right to vote in general elections. If they are all being treated the same, are we proposing to take away voting rights from Irish, Maltese and Cypriot nationals? Are we proposing to give voting rights to the nationals of other EU countries? Or is that something the Government simply have not thought about?

All this presumes there will be a satisfactory outcome to the negotiations. After all, the Government’s offer is predicated absolutely on reciprocity, and that presumes a deal. What happens if there is no deal? We have heard a lot about no deal being better than a bad deal. For EU nationals resident in the United Kingdom, who have suddenly been given a glimmer of hope by the Government’s paper on safeguarding their rights, no deal would surely be worse than a bad deal. Yet, if the UK is so reluctant to countenance a role for the Court of Justice of the European Union in enforcing the rights of EU citizens, do Her Majesty’s Government really expect to get a deal?

There are many questions. Some of the questions raised in the European Union Committee’s report had been partially answered by the Government’s safeguarding paper, but only partially. If the Minister can give us some answers this evening that, would be most welcome.

European Union: Migration

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I shall endeavour to be helpful to the Minister: the previous questions have been about the past; I want to ask about the future. Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union relates to the free movement of workers, not people generally. What thoughts have Her Majesty’s Government given to the excellent report by the House of Commons Brexit committee? It talks about the rights of UK and EU nationals in relation to the non-work related aspects of immigration policy, including students and family reunion, and EU spouses compared with non-EU spouses. I declare my interests as listed in the register.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I am glad the noble Baroness is talking about the future and not the past, which probably neither of us, and certainly I, do not remember. The directive is about the movement of workers and their families. The Prime Minister has been absolutely clear about protecting the rights of EU nationals living in this country. We talked a lot in Committee about the fairness of the process and, therefore, protecting the rights of UK nationals in return. The Government do not want to do this on a unilateral basis. We need to think about all the people involved, both UK nationals living in the EU and EU nationals living here.