EU Settlement Scheme

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. We welcome it if we take it at face value, but the noble Baroness will understand that we need to probe.

The Statement gives the impression that the Home Office will be bending over backwards to help UK-resident EU citizens to apply for and be granted settled status or pre-settled status. This appears to be completely at odds with the Home Office’s attitude towards the Windrush generation. Can EU citizens have confidence in this Statement in the light of the Windrush fiasco?

The Statement says that persistent offenders or those who pose a security threat will not be eligible. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has already asked what the threshold might be in respect of which criminals will be excluded, allowed in or allowed to remain, and she may be ready to answer that. In the other place, the Minister said that UK criminal record databases and watch-lists would be searched and that applicants would be asked about overseas convictions. Currently, ECRIS can be searched by the UK, but access to ECRIS looks as though it is in jeopardy. How confident is the Home Office that its systems will be robust enough to identity those with serious overseas convictions?

The Statement says that close family members living abroad will be able to join EU citizens resident in the UK. Can the Minister confirm how close a relative would have to be in order to be able to join an EU citizen who is resident here?

The Statement also says that negotiations are under way with non-EU EEA countries with a view to extending the scheme to their citizens. I think it mentions EEA countries and Switzerland. I should declare an interest in that I am married to a Norwegian and own property in Oslo. Can the Minister say any more on what progress is being made with regard to EEA countries and Switzerland?

Penultimately, will these arrangements be dependent on reciprocal arrangements being put in place for UK citizens resident in the EU and EEA countries, or will they be in place no matter what the response from those countries is?

This is a detailed and complex proposal, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has indicated by the number of questions he has asked. Will the Minister agree to a debate to allow proper consideration of all the issues that we have raised today?

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank both noble Lords for their very detailed questions, which I was furiously trying to write down and answer as they asked them.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, spoke about uncertainty for EU citizens. What my right honourable friend announced today will, I hope, provide further clarity and therefore less uncertainty for EU citizens, and that is precisely what we want. I hope that EU citizens will feel that there is a clear and transparent process which makes it as easy as possible for them to obtain settled status. He asked about the White Paper. We are expecting to issue it in due course. He also asked about the estimated take-up of the scheme from EU citizens. I think that it would be sensible and logical to say that the expected take-up should relate quite closely to the number of EU citizens who are currently in the UK. We think that about 3.5 million will generally apply.

The noble Lord also asked about reciprocal arrangements. As I think noble Lords will recall, when we first started bringing forward these plans, noble Lords and Members of the other place were very keen that we should start the ball rolling in good faith, and I hope that in good faith the EU will act similarly for our citizens. He asked whether what we are doing is acceptable from an EU point of view. I can certainly say that, from the point of view of an EU citizen living in the UK, it is very acceptable. As to whether the arrangements will be acceptable to the EU, I should hope so, because we are giving their citizens the settled status that is required to live here.

I have completely mixed up all the questions, but I shall go through them as I come to them. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked whether our plans will change in a no-deal scenario. It is fair to say that the Prime Minister has been very clear from the beginning of this process that she wants EU citizens and their families in the UK to be able to stay. She gave a personal commitment to EU citizens in October, when she said:

“I couldn’t be clearer: EU citizens living lawfully in the UK today will be able to stay”.


We are not anticipating failure and, as the Prime Minister set out in her Florence speech, we are confident that we can find a way forward that makes a success of this for all our people. We have a responsibility to make this change work smoothly and sensibly. We have reached an agreement with the EU guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens living in the UK and of UK nationals living in the EU, and we do not expect this to be reopened.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about the criteria for status and who is eligible for the scheme. Any EU citizen and their family members residing in the UK before the end of the implementation period on 31 December 2020 will be able to apply for settled status under the EU settlement scheme. People considered to be resident in the UK will include those here before midnight on 31 December 2020 and will include those previously resident in the UK who are outside the UK on that date but who have maintained continuity of residence here.

A close family member, which includes a spouse, civil partner, durable partner, dependent child or grandchild, and dependent parent or grandparent living overseas, will be able to join an EU citizen resident here after the end of the implementation period where the relationship existed on 31 December 2020 and continues to exist when the person wishes to come to the UK. Children born or adopted after December 2020 will also be eligible for the scheme.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked how the Government came to the figures of £65 and £32.50. The current fee for a permanent residence document for EU citizens is £65, and we think that the lower fee for a child is appropriate at half the price. I must add that, for a child in care, there is no fee.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked whether this would be a repeat of Windrush. I hope that this is the complete opposite of Windrush. People will be able to establish their status, as opposed to what happened with the Windrush generation, where, over time, some people became less and less able to establish their status, even though that status was implied when they came to this country. That is why it is crucial that EU citizens apply under the scheme, so that they will be able to evidence their status in the future.

Both noble Lords asked me about criminal records checks. All applicants aged 10 and over will be checked against the UK’s national police database and watch-list, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said. Applicants aged 18 or over will also be asked about their criminal history in the UK and overseas. The assessment of suitability will be conducted on a case-by-case basis and will take account of the applicant’s conduct in the UK and overseas, including whether they have any prior criminal convictions.

Cases will be refused where the applicant has committed criminality prior to the end of the implementation period that meets the EU public policy test. Any criminality committed after the implementation period will be considered in accordance with UK deportation rules. This means that an EU citizen who, in relation to an offence committed after the end of the implementation period, is convicted and receives a custodial sentence of 12 months or more will be considered for deportation.

The other point raised was about people who had committed crimes decades ago being refused. As I have said, conduct before the end of the implementation period will be considered against UK deportation thresholds. We think this is a sensible approach and one that will not affect the overwhelming majority of EU citizens and their family members.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about the consequences of not applying. It is important to take a pragmatic approach in respect of people whose individual circumstances have prevented them applying, an example of which might be a mental or physical health condition. Over the coming weeks, we will be discussing with stakeholders what assistance we can give to people who might require it.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also made a point about Irish citizens. As I said, they do not need to apply for settled status to protect their status and rights in the UK. However, the arrangements for existing close family members to join EU citizens resident in the UK are provided for by the withdrawal agreement and not by the UK-Ireland bilateral arrangements linked to the common travel area. Irish citizens might want to consider applying for settled status now to support future applications by family members. A successful application by an Irish citizen to the settlement scheme will make this process smoother for any family member applying in the future. However, the system will not prevent applications being made after the end of the implementation period by close family members seeking to join Irish citizens protected by the withdrawal agreement who do not have settled status.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked which family members are affected, given his own situation, which others might find themselves in. I think I answered that question earlier, so I hope that will suffice.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked who will staff the contact centre. Further details of this will be confirmed, and we will be discussing with stakeholders what the right service is and who will provide it.

Finally, the issue of landlord checks was raised. Landlord checks and the right to rent are not specific to EU or non-EU citizens; it is a requirement for all landlords to carry out such checks. Therefore, it does not matter where in the world you are from, as long as you have the right to live here.

I hope I have answered all the questions. If I have not—and there were quite a few—I will write to the noble Lords.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate]

My Lords, I was trying to ask a question of my noble friend when she answered the initial questions. As someone who has had some experience as a Minister of schemes of one kind or another where the Home Office has been involved with developing ID arrangements or helping people with passport applications and so on, I welcome the fact that something is being put in place here, but I urge her to look carefully at the logistics. Is she satisfied that enough resource is being made available for this extra duty? One of the proposals is that applicants can send their passports or ID documents to the Home Office, but I am sure she is aware that, when we are dealing with EU citizens, they tend to be much more mobile on a more regular and frequent basis, going backwards and forwards from here to Europe. Can she be sure that we will make certain that we have a better level of efficiency than, sadly, we have had in the past in turning round documents quickly and in dealing with the matter as speedily and with as little complication as possible?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend will have heard in the Statement that we will start to roll out the process in the summer and towards the end of the year. I would not call it a trial run, but the “private beta” phase—which I had never heard of before—is apparently a dry run, using real people who will get real documents. That is a good way to test how the system is working.

I also mentioned earlier the delivery of the settlement scheme and the Treasury’s allocation of £170 million for the further development and delivery of the settlement scheme. As my noble friend alluded to, we do not underestimate the scale of the challenge and we want to get it right. Every year, we process millions of visa and passport applications, but that does not undermine our wish to get it right. Our passport service has a good customer service record and I can tell my noble friend that, over the past year, the average turnaround time for passport applications was approximately seven days. I might add that the Institute of Customer Service ranks HMPO in the top 50 high-scoring organisations across the public and private sector.