Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018
Debate between Lord Haskel and Lord Bishop of Derby
The Lord Bishop of Derby
I would be very happy to say that belonging is what it is about—that is what a citizen is. It is about belonging, not just to your close family but to your community, your society and your state. We want people to feel proud of that, to feel welcome and fully participative.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing this regret Motion. I sit on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and, yes, this regulation did cause us concern: that is why we reported it to the House. For the Minister’s convenience, that was regulation 330. Last week, regulation 680 came before the committee with an almost identical title, dealing with fees for children and immigrants, and this one caused us even more concern: this one dealt with the waiving of fees for the Windrush generation. As my noble friend said, they came here as children. Here again, the Home Office’s uncompromising attitude towards immigrants caused a lot of disruption and difficulty for a lot of people—people legally entitled to be here but whose family settled in the UK prior to 1 January 1973, when the Immigration Act 1971 commenced.
People were not informed and only recently has Parliament become aware of these problems, and the difficulties and expense to which people have been put. The Government quickly introduced the Windrush scheme to put it right and this enabled the Home Office to waive fees for those eligible for the scheme. Yes, in this case the Home Office has apologised and rushed to put things right. Indeed, it has rushed so much that regulation 618 came into force without the normal period for people to pray against it. Indeed, the Immigration Minister wrote to your Lordships’ committee explaining the need to bring these regulations in immediately instead of waiting the usual 21 days. Your Lordships’ committee asked the Home Office how many people it anticipated would use the scheme, the cost and the end date. The answer was that it did not know.
This later regulation 618 proves that my noble friend is absolutely right to raise this question, because there was more trouble in the pipeline; trouble which, at least on this occasion, the Government have apologised for and tried to put right. The effect of having a hostile environment in the Home Office towards immigrants—presumably to get numbers down to the tens of thousands—and the damage done to innocent people will not be put right by an apology.
This policy has done the NHS an enormous amount of harm, as today’s first Oral Question illustrated perfectly, with concern expressed on all sides of the House. Only a change in policy will put it right, so I hope the Minister will carry my noble friend’s message to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister and that they will accept my noble friend’s proposal.