Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I signed Amendments 54 and 55. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Neuberger, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford for introducing them. I will not repeat their important comments and scene-setting.

I will also pick up on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, about deterrence. To say that a trafficker or smuggler of a 14 year-old child in north Africa wanting to come across the Mediterranean will be deterred by the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill is extraordinary. However, I will not focus on that.

Amendment 54 seeks to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within families who may go to Rwanda. I asked at Second Reading about special educational arrangements for children being sent with family groups to Rwanda, because it is not evident from what we have seen of the accommodation in Rwanda under the treaty that appropriate education is provided. I commented that, while Rwanda thankfully now has a good and fairly widespread primary system, it does not have a secondary system at all. As I have no idea, can the Minister tell us what arrangements will be made for this very small number of children—given that the number of people going to Rwanda will itself be very small—to continue their education, which, I remind your Lordships’ Committee, is their right under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? Will they be living in an environment that is right for family groups and not in the sort of detention arrangements we have in the United Kingdom? Does he know what the living arrangements will be for this small number of family groups?

I will spend the rest of my time talking about Amendment 55 and all the issues, which have been laid out, around a child deemed to have been an adult in the UK. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and I tabled regret amendments in November to an SI that arose from the Illegal Migration Act on the use of age assessment techniques, and I continue to have great concerns about the medical use of those assessments. But it is not just that—it is also visual assessments and, frankly, guesswork by the people assessing them.

The report she referred to, Forced Adulthood, spoke very clearly about the fact that some age assessments that happen as young people arrive in our country may take 10 minutes, which also includes discussions about how old they say they are. Forced Adulthood says that, quite often, the wrong interpreters have been provided for the young people; we do not even know if they are getting a proper and effective translation that would support them.

A couple of references have been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, and possibly the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, to support for young people going through the process. It was not at all clear from the SIs or the debates on the Illegal Migration Act that the sort of protection you would expect for somebody who is, or claims to be, a child—which we see in many other European countries that carry out this age assessment—would be provided for by the Bill or the SIs we covered on 27 November last year. I am very happy to see the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Blidworth, in his place, as we frequently had this debate.

Can the Minister say what age assessments are being used now, given that the SIs have come into force? Do they include the medical assessments that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to? If so, are they happening under the terms the noble Lord, Lord Murray, outlined at the Dispatch Box? These included that the Home Office would ensure that the individual has the capacity to fully understand the process and is communicated with in a child-friendly and clear way, and that interpreters would be available to assist with understanding information. I could go on. The key phrase was that it would be Merton-compliant.

Young people who say that they are children are now arriving in this country; the Government may disagree with them. Therefore, can the Minister confirm that those processes are now under way? Do the children have—as we fought for but did not win—independent representatives to support them in the process to help them with appeals? For all the other reasons that all noble Lords have spoken about in the debate, once a child arrives in Rwanda, they will find it extremely hard to appeal as—given the process—they are deemed to be an adult upon arrival. This amendment in particular is important because there may be a few who are able to articulate that and are finally believed, but who fell through the net.

There are consequences of getting it wrong. The Forced Adulthood report, which was published in January and refers to figures for last year but builds on figures from previous years, talks about local authorities’ concerns when they have received those deemed to be adults into hotels, but it quickly becomes clear that they are actually children. The consequences of them perhaps being abused and trafficking themselves from those hotels are unconscionable. We must do everything we can to make sure that everyone who is, or believes they are, aged 18 or under gets the support they require—including the transitional support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, was looking for in his Amendment 46.

I hope the Minister will be able to give us some detail that might provide reassurance on that. Even with that, however, we need a clear pathway back for anyone who has been misdiagnosed as an adult and gets to Rwanda, where it becomes apparent that they are a child. Perhaps the Minister can outline exactly how that will happen.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I shall be brief but I will widen my remarks beyond just children. The Committee has made a very thorough examination of the Bill. I admire the quality of contributions from our legal colleagues. The debate has, however, been rather one-sided. The noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, is the only person who has touched on the wider issues, which is what the debate is about.

We are not dealing with saints. We are dealing with people entering our country illegally and on a considerable scale. This raises policy issues which are not part of this debate but are very important. Just the backlog of claimants, as I have mentioned, is enough to fill Wembley Stadium. Roughly 80% of the claimants are males aged between 18 and 40. I accept, of course, that children need special treatment, but most of them are young men and virtually all have destroyed their documents, and all have come from a country where they were already safe, mainly France or Belgium.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I apologise for not being able to rise to intervene. I am grateful to the noble Lord.

The Government have claimed that in almost half the age-disputed cases, the people in question were found to be adults. This figure, however, fails to include the many hundreds of children deemed to be adults by the Home Office who were subsequently referred to local authorities and then found to be children. It is children we are talking about in this group of amendments.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I understand that but I said at the beginning of my speech that I was going to range more widely. There are difficulties concerning children, but the point of the Bill is deterrence. If the Government can deter people from coming here, they are saving themselves a lot of difficulties. If the Government can deter people from sending their children here, often alone, they can avoid the difficulties the noble Baroness and her colleagues have so rightly described.

I have just one other point to make. The British public are very angry indeed. Some 68% want to see effective action; I sympathise with them and would like to find a way to deal with the problem. The Bill clearly has some serious difficulties and it has been strongly attacked in this House without much attention given to the real issue facing the Government—and the next Government—of how to deal with the inflow and the state of public opinion.

In reviewing where we have got to, I have looked at the amendments being discussed. There are at least nine that would render the Government’s policy completely ineffective; they would torpedo it and, therefore, later in this process, will have to be addressed. I am referring to Amendments 1C, 8, 20, 36, 39, 48, 57, 81 and 90. Most of those would pretty much destroy the Government’s policy.

I conclude with a quotation from the former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, who wrote in connection with a paper produced by the CPS:

“The British public are fair-minded, tolerant and generous in spirit. But we are fed up with the continued flouting of our laws and immigration rules to game our asylum system. And we’ve had enough of the persistent abuse of human rights laws to thwart the removal of those with no right to be in the UK. This must end. Saying so is not xenophobic or anti-immigration”.


I recognise that that is a different note and I am quoting the former Home Secretary, but a lot of people outside this Chamber would agree with that.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Green. For my part, I agree with his assessment. However, it is one of the unfortunate features of the area that our more generous arrangements for handling unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are open to abuse and are abused. We needed to take steps to stop that. That is why, in the Illegal Migration Act, we put into force Sections 57 and 58. In the Nationality and Borders Act, authorisation was given for the utilisation of scientific methods of age assessment, all of which aim to prevent adults abusing our special arrangements for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

All these amendments, in particular Amendment 55, will not have the objective that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, sought to persuade the Committee. She says in her Member’s explanatory statement that the amendment

“avoids a situation in which an unaccompanied child is erroneously relocated to the Republic of Rwanda”.

That is simply not the case. If one looks at the Illegal Migration Act, one will see that Section 57(1) makes it clear that it applies only if the

“relevant authority decides the age of a person … who meets the four conditions in section 2”—

ie, that they are an illegal entrant—and determines their age in accordance with Sections 50 and 51 of the Nationality and Borders Act, using scientific methods. The effect of the provision is to avoid the hazard that there will be repeated challenges which would be suspensive of removal. It does not take away someone’s opportunity to challenge completely the finding that they are, in fact, an adult. It simply says that they have to do that from Rwanda, and there is nothing wrong with that. For those reasons, I oppose these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who has spoken. I hope those who spoke in support of the amendment will forgive me if I do not spell out what they said, but they strengthened the case remarkably, helping to make a very strong case. I am conscious that other noble Lords want to get on with the dinner-break business so I will be as quick as possible.

I wanted to say something in response to the noble Lords who spoke against the amendment, particularly around the point about deterrence, which a number of noble Lords raised, including the Minister. I just remind them about the impact assessment on the Illegal Migration Act, which said:

“The academic consensus”—


I speak as an academic—

“is that there is little to no evidence suggesting changes in a destination country’s policies have an impact on deterring people from … travelling without valid permission, whether in search of refuge or for other reasons”.

I am sorry, but I do not think that all those arguments about deterrence are very compelling.

The noble Lord, Lord Green, seemed to use what was supposed to be our opportunity to focus on the best interests of children to make a much more general point about a whole list of amendments that are not in this group at all—and I am not sure that that is valid in Committee procedure. He did not make convincing points about children as such. However, he made the point about the British public being very angry. Has anyone asked the British public what they think about children being wrongly assessed as adults and then being put in adult accommodation? I suspect they would not be very happy about that. So I do not see the relevance of the more general point—the noble Lord is trying to get up; perhaps he has some evidence about that.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

The noble Baroness is probably right that the public are not focused on children, still less on the precise means by which they are assessed. However, they are concerned about large-scale, illegal immigration into Britain, which is what I was referring to.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords that it is illegal only because we made it illegal in the legislation that previously went through this House. There is nothing illegal about seeking asylum; there is an international right to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Murray, questioned the explanatory statement. This has been drafted by a lawyer for me; I will not go into all the legal stuff now. The Minister rattled through section this and section that, and I am afraid I could not even keep up with it, so I will not try to address that; obviously, I will read what he said afterwards. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, said that there is nothing wrong with sending children to Rwanda and expecting them to challenge a decision from there. There is everything wrong with it. Think about it.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

The Government will reject Amendments 19 and 21. If they were in the Bill, they would at least make Clause 2 say: “Every decision-maker must treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country unless presented with credible evidence to the contrary”. If the Government find that objectionable, we are now in very new territory—besides references to the 16th century. No other treaty that this country is party to prevents it being challenged, and there is no other relationship with any other country in the world where we are unable to allow our courts to consider its security, safety and safeguards. The Government want us not only to decide on some things that we cannot decide as a legislature but then to bind the hands of any institution and the judiciary so that they cannot take any evidence of any changes. That is egregious for the reasons my noble friend Lord Scriven and others have given: not only should we in this place not decide whether a country is safe but we absolutely should not decide that a country should never be unsafe.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will make a brief postscript to the very powerful interventions that have been made by many other Members, including and particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. I point to some practical aspects. The fact of the matter is that the asylum system is in chaos. The number of cases that are waiting to be assessed would fill Wembley Stadium. This Government are in real difficulty and the next Government, whoever they are, will be in equal difficulty if we do not find a way forward. I accept all the legal difficulties that have been raised very effectively, but let us also keep in mind the practical aspects, and that if this is allowed to continue there will be a very unfortunate effect on relations between communities in our country.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

The noble Lord is an expert in these areas. If the Bill goes through, what is his estimate of how many people will be relocated from the backlog that he has referred to, and over how many years? I think it could take up to 20 years. How will that deplete Wembley Stadium?

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I do not think that anybody has any idea of the answer to that. That is one of the difficulties. I am pointing to the social difficulties that will also follow. Therefore, we must give the Government some space in order to make an impression on the future inflow of cases to this country.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to the quality of the contributions that we have had from so many noble Lords in the debate on this group. I recognise some of the shortcomings of my Amendment 29, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, pointed out, but it is an attempt to discuss refoulement. I will come back to that.

The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, spoke to, have much to commend them about ensuring the role of the courts, as does my noble friend Lady Lister’s amendment, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. Indeed, so do the other comments from the noble Lords, Lord Deben, Lord Clarke and Lord Purvis, and many others. I will put those amendments and our discussions in the context of something that we have heard much talk about: the importance of the unwritten constitution on which our country functions, and the role and importance of the House of Lords.

I do not believe that what I am going to say is true of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, or his colleague, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart. But it is true that something was published on Monday evening— I did not see it until this morning, when it was sent around as part of the House of Lords Library summary of press cuttings that are sent to many of us, if not all of us. It said that the Prime Minister of our country

“challenged Labour and the House of Lords to back the bill, saying: ‘We are committed to getting it through parliament, but unfortunately, we don’t have a majority in the House of Lords’”.

A vote was lost in this House of Lords. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, a vote was had and His Majesty’s Opposition officially did not support it, and we have never talked about blocking or delaying the Bill. We are discussing these amendments today, so why is the Prime Minister saying that we are talking about blocking and delaying it? I would have thought that if we are talking about the constitution, we have a perfect right to stand up in here. All Members of this House, from all the different parties, have made different contributions with respect to the Bill to try to ask the Government to think again and revise what they are doing. What is unconstitutional about that? We might as well pack up. What is the point of our debates and discussions—the brilliant speeches we have heard today and a couple of days ago? Even if we disagree, what is the point of it, if all the Prime Minister of our country says is that we are being deliberately destructive and trying to block the Bill, when we said quite categorically that we are not going to?

To continue:

“Everyone else right now as we speak is lining up to do deals”—


this is the Prime Minister—

“in the House of Lords to block us … We’ve already seen that in the Commons”.

Does it make any difference what anybody says? The amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, spoke to on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile; the comments that the noble Lords, Lord Clarke and Lord Deben, made; the comments that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made the previous day—do they make any difference? Are we just going through a rubber-stamping process here? What is the constitutional position of the House of Lords if the Prime Minister of our country is saying that none of the amendments that we are discussing—in this group, the last group, the next group and the groups that will come next Monday—means anything?

The worst thing was when I read in the Sun that all 93 amendments that have been tabled are “wrecking amendments”. That goes for the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, who was in his place a moment ago. He has tabled an amendment, as has the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. They are not “wrecking amendments”. They are doing the proper job of this House to say to the Government, “Have you really got this right? Do you really not think you should think again?”.

I ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, and through him the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, and the others: when we have these debates, do they go back to the department and say, “Coaker got up and had a real go at us about something. Did he have a point?”. The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, or the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Howard, said this, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said that. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said this, and my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Lister tabled these amendments, including those we have today about torture. Is it worth bothering? Is the Prime Minister saying that this is just them trying to stop the Bill, when people in this Chamber have the integrity and belief that it is their job to question the Government? That is the constitutional role of this House of Lords, and we should be proud of it and stand up for it. We will not be intimidated or bullied by a Prime Minister into just accepting that we have no right to question the Government because he says it. Will the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, take that back to the Cabinet? Will the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, take it back to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister?

It is good to see the Government Chief Whip here and I hope that she will make those representations as well, because it is really important. It does not matter which amendment we are talking about. This Chamber deserves that respect from the Government: to listen to what is said and to make the counter-argument if they do not agree with it. It is perfectly reasonable for the Government to do that as well.

I could not believe what I read this morning. I am sure it is an opinion shared by the majority in this House that even if people disagree, they have the right to be heard and have what they say considered by the Government of the day. That is the constitutional position our country has existed upon, and a constitutional arrangement of which we should all be proud. Nobody is trying to block or wreck the Bill, but we have a perfect right to stand up and say whether the Government have got it right.

The amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, were spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. What can be more important than asking whether the Government are seeking to undermine the role of the courts in determining whether the rule of law is being upheld? Is it not reasonable to ask the Government that question, and to table amendments to that effect? Is it not reasonable for my noble friend Lady Lister to ask whether torture is a factor? The Government are perfectly entitled to say that amendments are unnecessary, but these are legitimate questions, and they cannot simply say, “We’re going to ignore them. This is the Government’s position”. Real questions have been asked about the rule of law, and the Government are just saying, “We’re going to overturn the Supreme Court judgment not through an argument or opinion, but by simply changing the facts and ruling that Rwanda is safe. It doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court determined —we’re going to do that”.

I turn to my own Amendment 29 and will read from the JCHR report. The main reason it gives is that

“the Supreme Court, after considering all the evidence placed before it, held that Rwanda was not a safe country because of the risk that individuals sent there would be subjected to refoulement”.

My amendment therefore seeks to address the Supreme Court’s concern that there was a risk of refoulement. The Minister will no doubt respond by saying that the Government have dealt with that, because Article 10(3) of the treaty provides the mechanism to do so. The heart of the problem throughout is that the Government are saying that Rwanda is safe, whereas all the various amendments say that, as the Supreme Court and the International Agreements Committee recognise, it may be that Rwanda becomes safe. What cannot be simply stated is that Rwanda is safe now.

Article 10(3) states:

“The Parties shall cooperate to agree an effective system for ensuring that removal contrary to this obligation does not occur”.


Can the Minister tell us what that effective system is? Is it already in operation, and if not, when will it be? What is the timeline, and what do we know about it since? It is through Article 10(3) of the treaty that the Government seek to address the problem the Supreme Court identified.

The Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, will no doubt say, as the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, did on the previous set of amendments, that this is necessary because of the deterrent effect. The very helpful briefing on the Bill provided by the House of Lords Library reminds us that the Permanent Secretary required ministerial direction to carry on with respect to deterrence, because of the lack of evidence that the Rwanda policy had any deterrent effect. The Home Secretary of the day provided that letter.

I finish where I started. I ask for an assurance from the Minister that our amendments are not seen as wrecking amendments by the Ministers dealing with the Bill, and that they take them back to their departments and consider whether some Members of your Lordships’ House may actually have a point. Rather than blocking the Bill or even delaying it, many of your Lordships are trying to say, “Even though we oppose it, we are trying to improve it”. This House deserves, at the very least, that respect from the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

Legal migration has gone up from 184,000 a year to 740,000 a year. The concern about the social fabric of our nation is less about those who are seeking asylum and fleeing danger; it is about those who migrated legally under powers that the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, was passionate that we had. She was passionate that we had those powers; we now have an Australian-style points system and it has catastrophically failed. On that jolly point, I will give way to the noble Lord, Lord Green.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is completely right on his numbers; migration is about 10 times, sometimes more, the inflow of asylum seekers. But the issue that concerns public opinion—maybe because it is always on television or because it is the only thing that the Government are talking about—is indeed asylum. None the less, the real problem, as the noble Lord implied, is the scale of immigration, and we should be under no illusions about what that means for our future.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord and, to some extent, I agree with him. If we have a legal migration system that has been a catastrophic failure, and the Government then seem to wish to scapegoat those fleeing conflict or danger to claim asylum here, I am not surprised that this dominates the debate. But the Government should not look at us when it comes to that situation.

I found it interesting that, when I asked the noble Lord, Lord Green, who supports this Bill, what impact it would have on that point with regards to the backlog—the Wembley Stadium—he gave me an honest answer and said that he did not know. I think he said that the Government do not know; I think he said no one knows. Yet we have paid nearly £400 million not to know. It is the most expensive question never to be answered in the history of the Treasury.

It will get worse, and Amendment 74 therefore tries to get a bit more detail about this. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is absolutely right. The Permanent Secretary did not seek ministerial direction simply, as the Minister alluded to before, because there was maybe a question around this, because it is novel. The Permanent Secretary is the accounting officer; it is his duty to say whether a policy would be value for money for the British taxpayer. He was unable to do that, so he asked to be overruled by the Minister. What was quite extraordinary was that, as we now know from his submission in December, part of the ministerial direction was not to tell Parliament of an extra £100 million that was given as a second tranche under this scheme—another large swathe of funding.

We were told by the noble Lord, Lord Murray, during the passage of what became the Illegal Migration Act, that the costs of the scheme were dependent on a per-person basis. That was correct, but we now know that it was not the full answer. Part of the scheme will be on a per-person basis, but the £100 million was a credit line to the Government of Rwanda. So I would like the Minister, when he responds to this debate, to be quite clear and to tell us what that credit line is being used for. We do not know and, if the court of Parliament is to make a judgment, we need a bit more evidence.

The Hope hostel, which is the receiving centre for the people who are due to be relocated, is a private business. It is operated on a private sector contract and the Government say that they will not release information about what we are paying for because it is a Rwandan private sector contract. The Minister said to me in his letter that the Home Office cannot divulge information about the contracts that other countries have made—but we have paid for it. Not only have we paid for it, we will be paying for it. So I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us if there will be another tranche of funding for the Hope hostel in the next financial year, because it is on an annual rolling contract.

This issue also comes down to the fact that that centre can accommodate 200 people, with a typical processing time of a fortnight, I was told. So that will be a maximum of about 5,000 people a year, unless there are Hope hostels 2, 3 and 4 that we will be paying for. We do not know yet. If that is the case and we look at the Wembley Stadium backlog of at least 90,000 people, at 5,000 people a year it is going to take nearly 20 years to clear it.

So far, it has cost just shy of £400 million. What if it is on a per-person basis? That is where the noble Lord, Lord Murray, was absolutely right because, after we pleaded for the impact assessment of the Illegal Migration Bill, he gave that to us and we were duly grateful. It shows that per-person relocation will cost £169,000, on Home Office estimates. I remind the Committee that that is £63,000 more than processing someone and them staying here in the UK. It is 60 grand per person more expensive to the British taxpayer to relocate them in a scheme that is going to take 20 years and has already cost us nearly half a billion pounds.

If it will be 5,000 people a year, what are we looking at if we times that by £169,000? In one year, that will be just shy of £1 billion for two flights. That is fine if this is about the headlines and the Prime Minister saying, “I’ve got the planes taking off”. It is not fine for the British taxpayer. It is equally not fine if the whole purpose of this was to be a deterrent, because the noble Lord, Lord Green, is correct in one respect: if you are clearing the backlog, you want fewer people to come in the first place. That would require a deterrent rate of 100%. The Government’s best estimate, on a medium-term basis, is that there will likely be a break-even point with a deterrent effect of 50%. That is in the impact assessment. So the Home Office itself is estimating that this whole deterrence scheme is just going to halve the number of boats.

We already know that that does not matter, of course, because the Prime Minister announced in the new year that the deterrent effect was working. But we know that it is not, so I would be grateful if the Minister could outline what has been spent within MEDP—the migration and economic development partnership—in a scheme-by-scheme, line-by-line and project-by-project statement. If the scheme came under official development assistance, it would have to be put down under the DevTracker. But it is not under the DevTracker system of transparency at the FCO: it is from the Home Office, so I would like to see the equivalent of that published and the Minister to state whether the rolling contract is to be paid for another year, going forward. I would be very grateful if the Minister could say, at the end of year 1 of this scheme being in operation—just year 1, I am not going to be too ambitious—what the deterrent effect, the total cost and the per-person cost will be. Ultimately, if we are talking about a Budget coming up, surely we should be straight with the British taxpayer.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

We should therefore follow the Australian example, which is now operating successfully and is supported by both parties. The Labor Party in Australia has just reduced the cap on the number of immigrants allowed into that country because it is dissatisfied with the numbers going there; it is a vast country, after all. We have a similar but even more acute problem here. If we followed that example of Governments working within the existing acknowledged framework of their obligations to the international community, surely we could make some progress. If we hang on to too many bells and whistles of the kind that the House seems to want, I am afraid that we will fail and not make the progress available to us here.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, this has been a long debate and I shall therefore be extremely brief. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark spoke powerfully, as have many extremely well-qualified lawyers, so I will not talk about the law. I found myself very much in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne. He put important points that I hope will be reflected later in our debates.

We also need to take account of what one might call the real world. I am glad to see that the Opposition Front Bench is being cautious at this point; perhaps that is one of the reasons. The reality is that the Government have lost control of our borders, and even the backlog of asylum seekers is enough to fill the largest stadium in the UK. I regret to say that there is deep public anger, but there is, and we have to take it into account—I am sure that the Commons will—when we take this forward. It is therefore for the Government to take action to bring all this under control and for us to give some advice as to how that could best be done. But let us not lose sight of the fact that this is a very difficult and widely resented situation, and we need to be careful ourselves.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to this group of amendments; I apologise to the Committee that I could not be here for Second Reading. Even though I was on the estate, I had a bad chest infection. I was coughing and sputtering, which I did not think would add to the debate, so I listened to it in my office and have subsequently read the Hansard. I was also very proud to vote for my noble friend Lord German’s fatal amendment to the Second Reading Motion. I draw the Committee’s attention to my interests in the register on this issue. I will try not to do a Second Reading speech but to keep my comments to this clause and the amendments.

These amendments are quite important, based on what I would call this candyfloss clause. It is a bit like candyfloss because the Government are trying to make it big, enticing and sweet but, the moment you touch it, it starts to disintegrate as you realise that it is built on nothing. Clause 1(3) says:

“The Government of the Republic of Rwanda has, in accordance with the Rwanda Treaty”—


these are the important words—

“agreed to fulfil the following obligations”.

They have not yet done that, nor given an indication of how they will. It is therefore important, before any person is sent to Rwanda, that those obligations are fulfilled. There also needs to be some form of independent assessment of how that is done.

In the normal course of the rule of law, the courts of this land would make an assessment. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, is trying to put in at least some form of independent assessment. People may argue about whether it is independent, but the UNHCR and its role in the legal understanding of refugees and safe countries is well understood. I have a slight problem with the amendment from the noble Baroness, as it involves just one set of evidence and, clearly, courts would normally look at a wider range of evidence. However, it is important that, in Amendment 34, there is a rebuttable presumption. I assume that it would, at some point, give some leeway and a doorway to the courts to test that, so the legality of the decision made by the Executive can be reviewed by the independent judiciary. It will be interesting to see that. That is the aim of the amendment from the noble Baroness.

I ask the Minister, when responding to these amendments, to pick up what my noble friend Lady Hamwee said regarding the incompatibility at times between Rwanda and the laws of this land, and the obligations and treaties that have been signed. Particularly, how will refugees’ claims be assessed in Rwanda? Where there is incompatibility between the laws or obligations of Rwanda and the UK, exactly how will those contradictions be dealt with?

Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, at an earlier stage in our debates I asked all the lawyers present why our judiciary and officials, in interpreting these international agreements, give 75% of applicants for asylum the right to asylum on first application. It is only 25% in France and in almost all other countries it is below ours. If we are interpreting these laws correctly, other countries must be interpreting them incorrectly. We are told that we will lose all credibility if we do things incorrectly. Why do these other countries not lose all credibility? Why has none of the lawyers answered these questions before or now?

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak within two minutes and oppose this amendment. Migration Watch was the first organisation to draw attention to this problem and has been calling for action for three years. I will make two political points, not legal ones. I leave the law to the lawyers.

Practically, we find ourselves in a situation where we have no means of stopping the flow of another 50,000 applicants for asylum over this year, and quite possibly as many or more next year. With last year’s intake still under consideration, the whole system is being overwhelmed and the cost is becoming extraordinary, even as a percentage of our foreign aid. This is unacceptable.

Secondly, from a political point of view, I am not political but the public are furious—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

Noble Lords know that I am not. The point has just been made that the public do not understand this—they are furious and the Government’s reputation is suffering severely. Effective action is essential, but that will be only harder if this amendment is approved. I trust that this House will ensure some flexibility on the legal front in order that a very serious matter may be addressed practically.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, some extreme language was used throughout Second Reading and Committee and there was very strong emotion. I understand that, because the Bill evokes strong feelings, but I suspect that, beneath all that, there may be more agreement than has been visible in our debate today and in previous debates. The spokesman for the Opposition has not added his name to this amendment and they did not oppose Second Reading, I suspect because there is an understanding that this is a difficult problem that any Government have to deal with. Any Government of whatever stripe have to take protecting the country’s borders extremely seriously.

A great deal of agreement underlies all this. For example, we all agree that there should be better-organised legal routes for genuine asylum seekers than there are at the moment. The main difference between the two sides in this debate is over the role of deterrence. The Government argue that we will not succeed in handling this problem unless there is an element of deterrence.

To bring it up to date—I will respond to the Chief Whip’s desire to be quick—we now all have the impact assessment, which we did not have until the day before yesterday, which points out the Australian example. Australia brought in a law very similar to this, which gave its Government the power to detain people and turn them around, in their case to Nauru and the Solomon Islands—in our case it is to Rwanda—within 48 hours. I asked the Government, reasonably, why we are not doing this. They pointed out that the Australians do not have to pay any regard to the European Convention on Human Rights, whereas we do. In their view, to comply with that, we could not reasonably turn detainees around within 48 hours; we would have to take at least 28 days, as is in the Bill at the moment.

I do not know whether the Government have ticked every box and crossed every T in relation to the ECHR, but it is quite clear that they have made a big attempt to do so. They have clearly taken on board the spirit of what we have agreed, even if not the letter of the law. The Government are in discussions with the European court about the convention. I am interested to know what the Minister can say about the state of those discussions. It is not only the UK but other countries—Italy, Spain and France—that are in discussion, because this is a new problem which is not covered by the original convention. We have to take that into account and realise that there is a real problem here, which is not a lot to do with immigration but is about border control more than anything else, which any Government will have deal with.

In relation to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, the Bill in its unamended form, as it is now, passed the Commons with a majority of 59. There is huge public support for what the Government are attempting to do. The latest YouGov poll showed 60% as saying that illegal migrants should not be allowed to claim asylum in this country; only 20% said the reverse, and 20% were undecided. We have to take that into account. As Matthew Parris, who is no one’s idea of a right-wing nutcase, said recently in an article:

“If you oppose the government’s plans to send away those who land, then whether or not you know it you are advocating an indefinite continuation of migrant deaths. And that is cruel”.


It is indeed cruel to allow that continue.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare a non-financial interest as president of Migration Watch UK. I also remind the House that I speak for 30 million UK adults who wish to see immigration reduced, 18 million of them “by a lot”. In yesterday’s debate the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, referred to what he described as a bizarre taboo against discussing world population. I would add that there seems to be an even more bizarre taboo on discussing the population of the UK, this despite the fact that our population is growing at a rate of about 1 million every three years—that is, the population of Birmingham —and 80% of that growth is due to the direct and indirect effect of immigration. If there is such a taboo, I am very happy to break it.

The Queen’s Speech promises a “modern, fair, points-based” system for immigration and it is welcome that the Prime Minister’s new year message recognised that controlling immigration is now one of “the people’s priorities.” Indeed it is. On the same day, a Home Office spokesman said that the Government wished to attract the brightest and the best while bringing the numbers down—good. They are no doubt aware that a recent Deltapoll survey found that 64% of those in marginal seats saw current immigration levels as a “major public concern.” We have had words from the Government; what about action? Crucial decisions will need to be taken quite soon on the shape of the new system. I will just make three brief points.

First, there has been talk of schemes to permit low-skilled workers from certain countries to come and work here for 11 months, before returning home for a so-called cooling-off period. Any such scheme would be completely unenforceable. It would just be a clumsy attempt to manipulate the official immigration figures, and I see that the noble Lord, Lord Reid, agrees. These proposals should be dropped.

Secondly, for skilled workers, the current level of skills and salary must not be undermined. There is already pressure to reduce the skill level from degree to A-level and the salary from £30,000 to £21,000, only just above the living wage in London. The effect of such changes, which I agree sound rather technical, would be enormous. They would expose between 6 million and 9 million UK jobs to new or increased international competition. The effect could well be that the numbers rise sharply, given that wages in Britain are much higher than in the third world and that this route would lead to settlement.

Thirdly and lastly, a solution is at hand, one already an essential part of the Australian system that the Government claim to be following; namely, to place a cap on the number of skilled work permits issued each year. It is as simple as that, and it is a proposition supported by 70% of the British public.

I conclude with the thought that caution is essential. Numbers could well spin rapidly out of control, as they did, regrettably, in the Blair years, and it would be very difficult to get them down. If that was allowed to happen, the Conservative Party would go into the next election having spectacularly failed to reduce immigration for the fourth time. That would not amuse the bulk of its own supporters. As for the new supporters in the so-called red constituencies, many would be absolutely furious. Immigration is normally an issue that this House loves to avoid, but the Government would avoid it at their peril.

I have 10 seconds in which to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, to this House and to wish him a very happy and successful time in this body.

Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, on same-sex marriage and abortion, the reality is that this House was implementing the express will of the Commons and improving the workability of those amendments. This issue has come from the Commons in response to an amendment that we passed back to them. I echo the noble Baroness in saying that to suggest that this has nothing to do with the people of Northern Ireland could not be further from the truth. A no-deal Brexit would be disastrous for Britain and catastrophic for Ireland, so we have every reason to support the amendment and reject the Minister’s amendment to it.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, what lies behind this issue is whether a future Prime Minister will have a credible threat of no deal. I do not want no deal, but I believe that, unless he has that threat, he will do no better than his predecessor.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, this is not about a no-deal Brexit; it is about the Prorogation of Parliament and importance of the issues before us in relation to Northern Ireland. The only issues before us in the amendment proposed by the Minister are constitutional. Despite my disagreement with him today, it is appropriate from the outset to say that he has been a great asset to the House and the Government in how he has dealt with this legislation, which has been complex and difficult at times.

Your Lordships’ House is always concerned with constitutional issues. Two arose in last week’s legislation. It is to his eternal shame and my horror that I often find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on constitutional matters. On this issue, I partly agree with him but also part company with him. We are in extraordinary times. It should be quite unnecessary to have in any Bill something that says that a Prime Minister should not prorogue Parliament to get legislation through or to stop something happening. It should be a matter of course that we had sufficient trust in any Prime Minister that such an amendment would not be necessary.

Last week, this House agreed by 272 votes to 169 a cross-party amendment that there should be a clause in this Bill that required Parliament to be sitting to receive and debate the report on Northern Ireland that we had agreed to. We acknowledged also that the secondary purpose behind that amendment was related to the strong opposition that we believe exists in both Houses to the Prorogation of Parliament to force through or enable a no-deal Brexit, or any kind of Brexit, without Parliament sitting. Why was that so important?

Further Developments in Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

There is no question about that: I have got a lot wiser, because I voted no in 1975. This same poll showed that 55% of young voters would be angry if the UK left the EU without a public vote, compared to 9% who would be happy to leave without a vote.

The point is that I do not have to rely on a media report of a poll. In fact, the only reason I put my name down for today’s debate was that I thought something might have changed. But I also knew, by the middle of last week, that I was going to a sixth-form college on Friday to have a chat about Brexit and to listen. I was at Hereford Sixth Form College with a group of about 100 students. The straw poll at the beginning of our discussion mirrored exactly what that BMG poll said—it was about four or five to one in favour of remain—but after an hour we left the meeting with two key questions that they raised after consideration. They were really concerned whether, if there is another vote, 16 year-olds would be able to vote, “as it is our future”, and whether—because they are citizens of the world—it would be more difficult to address climate change when we are outside the EU. I did not discuss that with them but I can tell noble Lords that we will be outside the emissions trading system and the integrated electricity market, and it will be virtually impossible for the UK to give a lead to anybody on anything if we leave the EU.

We have led on climate change in many ways. We boast about our Bill having been the first to be legislated: I presented its Second Reading in this House. Young people are thinking about their future and that of the planet; the group in Hereford are a credit to today’s young people. In fact, I trust them far more than I do the inadequate political leadership in all our parties, particularly the two main parties, at present.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

The noble Lord has been talking about extending the franchise to 16 to 18 year-olds. Does he believe that it should continue to include the 1 million to 2 million people who are not British citizens?

[Lord Rooker]

There is a fine argument to be had about “no taxation without representation”. Many foreigners—a term that I do not normally use—who are resident in this country and paying their taxes have the right to vote in local elections; there are some restrictions about general elections. That is up for debate and I have no problem about that—it is part of our democratic system—but age and the franchise is a different issue. We ask 16 and 17 year-olds to take on a lot of responsibilities these days, and I think they should have the responsibility of voting.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington]

My Lords, I have not spoken in previous Brexit debates. I do so now to introduce some new and different material into the debate, and because I believe that a key aspect of it is going very badly wrong. Indeed, it could well inflict yet further damage to public confidence in our entire political system.

I refer to the scale of immigration—a matter of real importance to the general public that is not often mentioned in your Lordships’ House. In raising this matter, I speak for some 38 million of our fellow citizens who broadly share my concerns. In doing so, I declare an interest as the chairman, on a voluntary basis, of Migration Watch. It is not in question that control of our borders was a major factor in the outcome of the referendum: nor is there any doubt that immigration remains a major issue and will be a key measure by which the public will judge the outcome of Brexit.

My noble friend Lord Armstrong suggested that we look for issues that could be remedied in order for us to remain a member of the EU, and this must surely be a candidate. I accept that there is some evidence that concern about immigration has fallen away since the referendum. The refugee crisis in Europe is less acute, many assume that Brexit is now in train and will deal with it, there is much less coverage in the press of the issue, and, finally, net EU migration has fallen sharply. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, drew our attention to an interesting recent poll. It asked whether immigration had been generally negative or positive for the UK. It found that 48% of people said that it had had a positive effect, which was much higher than the 35% at the time of the referendum. That, of course, is very good news, and I welcome it.

However, the real problem is not immigration—none of us has ever said that that was a problem—but the scale of immigration. If you ask about that, you get an entirely different view. A Channel 4 Deltapoll poll conducted last June found that 73% of respondents supported what was then the Government’s commitment to reduce net migration to fewer than 100,000. Given that the population of the UK over the age of 18 is currently 52.4 million, arithmetic will give you the 38 million people to whom I referred earlier. Of course, they do not all vote—it might be a good idea if they did. The poll also indicated support by a majority of Labour and Lib Dem supporters and remain voters as well as a majority of 18 to 24 year-olds, so it is a very widespread view. I might mention that among Conservatives it was 88%.

Unfortunately, this very strong and important public opinion was ignored in the recent White Paper on immigration policy. The effect of the proposals set out in that paper would be to open between 2 million and 5 million UK jobs to worldwide competition, depending on the salary threshold that is decided. Not only that, but the present 4 million jobs already exposed to worldwide competition would be further exposed by the removal of the cap and the labour market test. Our analysis suggests that there will be very little reduction in net migration. Indeed, there could even be an increase back towards, and maybe surpassing, the record level of one-third of a million a year. If so, a British Government would yet again be seriously underestimating the immigration pressures on our country, just as we saw in 1998 and 2004. We could find ourselves sleepwalking into another wave of immigration.

The public may not be well versed in the technicalities, but they are well aware of the pressures of population, and its impact on housing, public services and the nature and scale of our society more generally. To take just one example, between 2001 and 2016, immigration added 1 million to our population every three years. That is the population of Birmingham every three years. These are astonishing figures. They are simply not being paid sufficient attention.

Before I conclude, I will say a word about the so-called Norway solution, which was mentioned by one or two noble Lords. In theory, Norway can take migration safeguard measures unilaterally. However, in practice, the EU-EEA treaty severely limits the scope of the Norwegians to take such action. The measures are permitted only in response to problems of a sectoral or regional nature, they are restricted in scope and duration and the measures have to be reviewed by a joint committee every three months. Most importantly, such action might expose the state in question to retaliatory measures by the EU—and that is a reason that Norwegian officials have given to explain why they have never gone down this road. So if you hear any more about the Norwegian solution, bear in mind that it would have serious implications for one of the most sensitive issues in the whole debate.

To conclude, immigration remains a major public concern. That concern is justified and the public want it tackled. Failure to do so post Brexit, when it was, and is, such a major public concern, would result in further and very serious damage to public confidence in our country’s political system—confidence that is already at an extremely low level.

Islamic Ceremony: Civil Marriage Registration

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The general proposition that we should recognise all forms of marriage raises issues in itself. Our marriage law actually goes back to Lord Hardwicke’s Act of 1753 rather than just to 1949. It is a complex area that we will consider from the spring onwards and in which we will have to move with care. But we cannot simply recognise all informal types of marriage. We have a basic marriage law in this country based on the place in which it is celebrated and the fact that that place is open to the public and that it should be witnessed. We cannot move away from that. Indeed, to do so would create other issues and problems for ourselves.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, we all recognise that this is a very complex issue, as the Minister has said. I pay tribute to the efforts of my noble friend Lady Cox, who has been on this case for years and years. Does the Minister not recognise that literally tens of thousands of women are in a very disadvantaged position? The Government produce one excuse after another but when will they actually take some effective action to end this outrageous situation?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, there is a very real issue out there and it has to do with education and information as much as anything else. Many vulnerable people are not aware of what is required for a valid marriage ceremony in England and Wales. Therefore, we must address that issue—I accept that. But simply to move in the direction of recognising, for example, the nikah form of ceremony creates very real difficulties in itself. To take one example, how will you then police the issue of sham marriages?

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, the advantage of being tail-end Charlie is that most of the key points have already been made, which also means that one can attempt to weigh them up. I am with those who are seriously disappointed about the outcome of these negotiations. I believe that the Government have been naive and that the Commission has been deeply cynical. We now risk being not just out of Europe but run by Europe; indeed, we risk being trapped in Europe, as my noble friend Lord Kerr of Kinlochard so vividly explained. Yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, mentioned, even Moldova has a break clause.

We do not yet have a final deal, and the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, explained the importance of the outline political declaration which is still being negotiated. But at present, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, described, this deal does not deliver on the referendum. It leaves us half in, half out, and possibly trapped. So if this is effectively the final deal and if it fails to get through Parliament—the House of Commons—I find myself persuaded, rather to my surprise, that we should look again at a second referendum. I do not mean a people’s vote, but a second referendum. Indeed, that has been the sense of the House because a remarkable number of noble Lords have been moving towards that conclusion.

It is not that I believe entirely the cries of woe about no deal. There is perhaps an element of Project Fear mark 2 in that, but there are clearly risks and this deal, frankly, is nothing like what people were offered during the Brexit campaign. I simply do not see how that course could be pursued without a renewed mandate from a referendum. The answer may well be the same but we need it as soon as possible.

I conclude with a matter which is of considerable importance but has hardly been mentioned; indeed, it was barely mentioned in either the withdrawal agreement or the draft political declaration. Of course, I am referring to immigration. I am very suspicious; I foresee the risk of the skills-based system that the Prime Minister mentioned being widened under pressure from the European Union when we get down to a negotiation on trade, where our hand is very weak. That pressure could well be reinforced by the many employer groups whose members have been making substantial profits from low-cost labour from Europe and, dare I say it, substantial savings on the training of British workers. I will not go any further into that issue but I will just say this: if Ministers are not careful, the outcome of this enormous process could well be very little reduction in net EU migration. If that is the result, the Government will pay a very high price with public opinion—and rightly so, in my view.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Green of Deddington Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, of particular interest to me in this Bill is the way in which ordinary people would be most directly affected by leaving the EU. I have tabled Amendment 210, which asks the Government to support retention of European citizenship where the individual British citizen wishes to do so. Although not explicitly stated in the amendment, it would also cover those who had not yet acquired European citizenship at the time of Brexit. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Davies of Stamford.

The importance of European citizenship and the effect of its loss at the individual level has not been sufficiently considered or explored, either before or in the 20 months since the referendum. Nevertheless, its retention has been consistently advocated by Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s representative on Brexit. Last year, it was the subject of a paper by Volker Roeben, then professor of international law at Swansea University, for Plaid Cymru MEP, Jill Evans. From the Government’s point of view, a useful conclusion of this paper was a belief in the feasibility of an associate citizenship, if citizenship rights were to be extinguished after Brexit. Roeben’s belief that this should be so was given some traction following the submission last month of a request to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling in the case brought by British residents of Amsterdam. It is early days yet, but it is worth noting, in the context of my amendment, this statement from the judgment:

“Once legally acquired, EU citizenship is an independent source of rights and obligations that cannot be simply reduced or affected by actions of a national government”.


The loss of European citizenship would not just adversely affect the British abroad and, indeed, European citizens in the UK, but every British person living in the UK. Following the referral to the ECJ, QC Jolyon Maugham, supporter of those who brought the case in the Netherlands, made a particular point of saying that the final outcome of this case would have implications for residents of the UK as much as those abroad. The loss would be of all those rights that EU citizenship embodies, both in terms of the principle of that citizenship—the loss of identity that many would feel deeply, and which cannot be overestimated—and the very real practical concerns about rights and opportunities that would be lost or compromised, including being able to freely travel, work, study and raise a family abroad.

This is likely to have the greatest effect on young people living in the UK—an effect with no silver lining and which can only register negatively, as a loss. At the level of the individual citizen, it is not replaced by anything. European citizenship is additional to British citizenship, and that is the reality, whatever the outcome of the case begun in Amsterdam. As Sunday’s Observer editorial responding to Theresa May’s speech, but which might just as well have been referring to the potential loss of citizenship, put it:

“It was a defeat for young people, British and European, who, more so than older generations, will perforce inhabit an ugly new world of harder borders, work permits, bureaucracy and pervasive state intrusion”.


The referendum notwithstanding, many British people, both abroad and in this country, are angry that they should be stripped of their European citizenship without their own individual consent. For all these reasons, a Brexit that does not allow the retention of individual European citizenship for those who wish to retain that citizenship is a hard Brexit—more than that, it is a brutal Brexit, whatever the outcome on the wider national scale in terms of any trade deals.

What is being asked for in this amendment is very simple, and the precedent already exists, as this is no different from the dual citizenships that some in this House possess. The amendment asks only for the continuing acknowledgement of that additional citizenship. Do we now wish to start stripping people of all citizenships that are not British—for example, Australian, Canadian, American, Indian, Chinese? The list goes on.

At the level of the individual, the only solution that would be realistic or fair is that the 52%—or whatever the figure is now—may hand in their European passports and renounce their European citizenship, and the 48% retain theirs. The reality, of course, would be quite different. We have heard in the news about noted leavers who have bought, or are buying, EU citizenship as we speak. As I am sure others in this House do, I know of those who voted leave who, in circumstances where they are lucky enough to do so, are applying for European citizenship for themselves and/or their children, sometimes through having a husband or wife who is an EU citizen. Hypocritical? Of course it is, but it is also testament to the significance and desirability of retaining that citizenship and the real loss involved, with those who are lucky or rich enough becoming the first-class citizens of tomorrow, when previously it was an entirely equal arrangement for all of us.

The loss of European citizenship will in itself create an unequal society within the UK. Look too at Northern Ireland, as has been remarked upon: all those born there—about 89% of that country—will retain European citizenship, further turning the rest of us in the UK, in effect, into second-class citizens. Of course, I am not suggesting that Irish citizenship be given up. Late last year, Theresa May gave her agreement to an understanding that goes back to 1917 and that was rightly confirmed in the Good Friday agreement. Better, surely, that all of us who wish to should be able to retain our individual European citizenship. The Minister may say that that offer is not on the table, but a Government and a Parliament that really want to bring this country back together and heal the divisions would take the initiative and put it on the table. That is the right course of action, and I hope that the Government accept this amendment.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

I will stay away from the law on this, but when it comes to travel and so on to the EU, is there not a discussion to be had, the likelihood being that most people—unless they are going to work there—will be able to move around Europe without a visa? If I may say so, it is therefore not quite as disastrous as the noble Earl suggests.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Green of Deddington]

Will the noble Baroness explain how we could possibly deal with several million people unless we invite them to apply?

[Baroness Ludford]

There could be a simple declaratory process. If any parliamentarians in this Chamber have ever had to deal with the Home Office on behalf of one of their constituents, as I did when I was an MEP, they will know what a happy—or otherwise—process that is. Something simple and declaratory such as going to the local town hall could be worked out. It should be light touch: a declaration of existing residence. That is quite different from having to apply to the Home Office.

The fear has been expressed on behalf of the group, the 3 million, that perhaps around 10% of people might fall through the cracks because their application is rejected or because they do not apply. Some people are not very aware of what is going on in the law or they do not have access to computers and so on. There is no legal presumption in favour of granting settled status to all residents who are legally living here before exit day, which begs another question. Perhaps the Minister could explain to us what exactly is going to happen to those people who arrive during the transition period. That, of course, is something the Prime Minister has conceded, in that they will have a status, but it is slightly unclear how it is going to work.

There has also been no clarification of the continuation of all the individual economic rights and recognition of qualifications that EU citizens currently enjoy and, as I have said, no guarantee that the registration will be simple and light touch. There is supposed to be a digital application system. Can the Minister tell us exactly where we are in the construction of that system? We all know that IT projects, in particular Home Office IT projects, have a habit of becoming problematic. Moreover, the backstop to all this is that the European Parliament will have to approve the withdrawal agreement, including the conditions for EU citizens. I note that Mr Verhofstadt tweeted yesterday,

“the European Parliament expects a cost free and burden free registration process”.

It wants to ensure that there is no discrimination between EU citizens and British citizens, which of course raises the question: are the Government planning to introduce ID cards by the back door in order to say that we are all being treated the same?

There are many holes and gaps that the Home Office is still unable to answer questions on. I do not have time to cover them all but I would like to ask about comprehensive sickness insurance—the requirement that people have private medical insurance—because very mixed messages are being given about it. The position of the European Commission has always been that if people are allowed to use the NHS, that amounts to comprehensive sickness insurance under the directive. It started legal action but that has apparently not progressed.

--- Later in debate ---

So you do not need to show evidence that you have it—but you will need it in order to access the healthcare system. Could the Minister kindly explain the apparent contradiction between those two statements? This is causing people a lot of anxiety, as the Minister is well aware. A lot of stay-at-home parents, spouses who have been economically inactive, carers, disabled people, pensioners and so on are extremely anxious about what is going to happen on this subject. Yes, it is technical—

[Lord Green of Deddington]

I am very puzzled as to how any of this is relevant to the Bill we are discussing. Does the noble Baroness not understand that this kind of stuff, which is being repeated time and again, is actually doing more harm than good? It is raising issues for people who do not face them. It is quite clear that the maximum is being done to help people qualify for residence in the UK. We could not do more than we have done. Frankly, this is just making trouble.

[Baroness Ludford]

It is highly relevant to whether people are being guaranteed their existing rights to legally reside in this country. I am quite surprised that the noble Lord thinks it is not relevant to an amendment that is about maintaining and guaranteeing the existing rights of EU citizens. The confusion is caused by the Home Office’s lack of clarity, not by me.

I end on that note. I would like some answers from the Minister to these detailed questions and many others.