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

Debate between Lord Bruce of Bennachie and Lord Rosser

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

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I commend those noble Lords who have followed this Bill in detail and identified so many anomalies and injustices that may arise with the ending of free movement. I have intervened to give them support and to identify amendments in which I have a particular interest.

My brief intervention here is in support of Amendment 64 which, like a number of others, highlights the hardship and injustice that may arise not by deliberate intent but because, when a freedom that has been available for so long is terminated, something that is currently not an issue becomes one.

In Scotland, we have leading centres of medical excellence. In my home region, in Aberdeen, we have the oldest teaching hospital in the English-speaking world, which has pioneered a number of innovations including the MRI scanner. Medical centres of renown exist in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Under the present rules, treatment can be provided to EEA nationals without recourse to a visa. It would surely be inhumane if, under the terms of this amendment, a visa were to be denied in future. Similarly, it is surely right on compassionate grounds if an orphaned child can best be placed in foster care in the UK—for example, where a sibling is already placed or some other particular circumstances apply. If the child is the dependant of someone living in the UK who has the right to remain, it is surely absolutely right that they can be united with them in the UK. This should be sufficient grounds for the automatic right to a visa.

We have seen cases in which UK citizens have availed themselves of medical treatment elsewhere in the EU, and previous contributions have discussed treatment being provided to people from elsewhere, so it is to be hoped that accepting this amendment would help to ensure that EU countries provide similar reciprocal arrangements.

So much will change next year, sadly, in my view, to the detriment of UK citizens in most cases, and also inflicting potential hardship on our fellow EU citizens whose access to the UK has not been restricted hitherto. This amendment is a simple example of how we can modify our visa arrangements post Brexit on compassionate and humanitarian grounds. I hope it will be accepted in that spirit.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, in Committee in the Commons, the Government stated that they were

“committed to the principle of family reunion and supporting vulnerable children”

and that they

“recognise that families can become separated because of … conflict and persecution”,

including through

“the speed and manner in which people are often forced to flee their country.” —[Official Report, Commons, 30/6/20; col. 263.]

Eligibility for refugee family reunion is covered in the UK’s Immigration Rules, which provide that refugees in the UK can be joined, via family reunion, by their spouse or partner and their dependent children under the age of 18.

Amendment 62 increases the family members whom EEA and Swiss nationals, who have exercised a right ended by Clause 1 of this Bill and are refugees in the UK, are allowed to sponsor to join them. In reality, the existing UK policy leaves some of the most vulnerable children separated from their parents at a time when they need their families more than ever—an issue that Amendment 62 seeks to address.

Amendment 64, to which my noble friend Lord Dubs’s name is attached, seeks to remedy this by requiring the Secretary of State to make provision for a visa to enter or remain in the UK on humanitarian grounds. This would apply to an EEA or Swiss national—that is done to keep the amendment in scope of the Bill—who requires medical treatment in the UK that is not available where they are resident; who is an orphan child, and a foster family or other foster care is available to the child in the UK and leave to enter or remain in the UK would be in the child’s best interests; or who is a dependent child of someone who has been granted leave to enter or remain in the UK. In their reply, perhaps the Government could say what they estimate would be the number of people entering the UK each year under the terms of such a humanitarian visa, compared with the latest annual net migration figure, for example.

The third amendment in this group provides that a person should be granted leave to enter or remain in the UK if they are an EEA or Swiss national and either have a child with a British citizen or person who has leave to remain in the UK, or are a child of a British citizen or person who has leave to remain in the UK.

I conclude by saying only that if the Government are

“committed to the principle of family reunion and supporting vulnerable children”,—[Official Report, Commons, 30/6/20; col. 263.]

as they said in the Commons when this Bill was being discussed, surely they can accept one or more of the amendments in this group.