Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Earl of Dundee and Lord Bishop of Manchester

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity to hold this short debate. The matters she raises are serious and require urgent address.

Greater Manchester—the Minister knows and loves it as much as I do—is a very diverse city region. Many of those who contribute to its flourishing and growth are families whose origins lie elsewhere. The children of those families enrich the life of our schools, including the 190-plus Church schools that educate over 60,000 children every day, often in the poorest communities. While these children rejoice in the distinctive heritage of their ancestral culture, and offer its riches to us, they are being brought up to be as British as I am. They know no other home. They are not immigrants—as the noble Baroness has said, we must not confuse the asserting of citizenship with immigration—they are British. They simply need to clarify that legally.

Ideally, I would not put a price on citizenship; it is far too precious. However, if a charge has to be made, it seems invidious to pitch it at a level where over half of the revenue is pure profit. Indeed, the profit levels might set the mouths watering of some of those who notoriously have milked our public coffers through the charges they have exacted for substandard PPE equipment—but perhaps that is for another day.

For cultural and religious reasons, many of these children are being brought up in families where they have more sisters and brothers than the average. We need those larger families to provide the future workers who will sustain our economy in years to come, as our population—noble Lords are no exception—increasingly ages. Many of their parents are key workers in those vital sectors of the economy, such as health and transport, which kept this nation going during Covid lockdowns, and they are often employed in the least well-paid jobs. Charging over £1,000 per child, especially when there are four, five or more children in the family, acts as a major disincentive to citizenship applications, one that prevents those children, as they grow up, being able to access the full rights to which they should be entitled as our fellow citizens. I echo the noble Baroness’s remarks about the opacity of the waiver regime. There is no point having a regime if it is not clear, when families embark on that process, whether they will be eligible.

I urge the Government to reconsider these charges as a matter of urgency. Perhaps it is not for me to intrude into private grief but, on a day when the moral authority of the Government is up for question, this would be a small but significant assertion that Her Majesty’s Government recognise a compelling moral case when they see one.

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, in welcoming these provisions, I apologise for missing the opening remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. However, we are still left with some anomalies, one of which follows the decision to reintroduce the fee charged to other children at £1,012 when the application—