Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but I would say: your Government have been in power for 12 years and, if you did not like it, why did you not do something before?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Lady knows that she must not address the hon. Gentleman directly.

[Gill Furniss]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Cutting BTECs flies directly in the face of levelling up. Instead of that, the Government should be championing them alongside T-levels. That is just one example of the Government’s actions failing to meet their rhetoric. Ministers are already making excuses on levelling up. The Levelling Up Secretary has spent the last week trying to cover up his own failures and those of the Government. He is trying to lead us to believe that deepening inequality is purely a result of external events such as covid and the war in Ukraine, but we know the truth.

We know that responsibility for the entrenched inequalities in our society falls at the door of this Conservative Government and their policies. Pensioners are having to ride buses all day to keep warm and families are struggling to afford the basic essentials, but, instead of stepping in, the Government are stepping aside. They are too busy trying to cover their own shortfalls to provide the support that people are crying out for. We all know why they are doing that: one day, just like the long-term economic plan and the northern powerhouse, levelling up will be retired as a political slogan with nothing to show but deeper inequality and worsening living standards.

The Government have once again shown that they are all talk and no action. The Queen’s Speech is yet another missed opportunity that fails to fix the deep-rooted inequalities caused by 12 years of this Conservative Government. They are out of ideas and out touch—and hopefully, following the Conservatives’ dire local election results on Friday, they will soon be out of office. Britain deserves so much better than this.

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[Neale Hanvey]

Drug deaths are not an isolated issue that exists in a bubble. The opportunities to correct them require the full economic levers of an independent country. While the problem exists, the remedy is retained by this place. The issues cannot be isolated. I certainly do not say that all is rosy in Scotland and that an independent country would flourish spontaneously, but independence is a gateway to different choices, different policies and different politics. It is not a panacea; that is not the argument that I am making. I will cover some of the Minister’s other points as I make progress.

There is another issue that affects crime and justice in Scotland and is a very good illustration of why Scotland needs the full economic levers of an independent country. Harnessing Scotland’s vast energy resources must benefit the Scottish people, not Her Majesty’s Treasury as it does currently. How can it be that in an energy-rich country such as Scotland, our people are fuel-poor and hungry and our pensioners survive on the lowest pension in the developed world? There are uncomfortable truths for those on the Government Benches. It is absolutely clear, from the Queen’s Speech and from the actions and words of Conservative Members, that this Government will prioritise the profits of energy companies over the wellbeing of the people whom they are supposed to serve. The chancellor’s economic policies are making inflation worse, not better.

There are alternative choices. For instance, the Chancellor could reduce council tax by a quarter, at a cost of £10 billion a year. That would reduce the retail price index by 1%. He could halt skyrocketing energy bills with a 50% cut. That would cost another £10 billion, but it would take another 1% off the RPI. Every time the RPI goes up, so do the interest payments to global financiers on index-linked gilt debt. A 1% RPI increase puts £5 billion on to those interest payments, but equally, 1% off the RPI saves £5 billion. The Chancellor—if he had a conscience—and a Government with the political will could reduce energy costs and cut council tax immediately. Her Majesty’s Treasury could finance the additional £10 billion with the windfall tax on the energy companies’ profits. Saving £10 billion for the financial markets and £10 billion from a windfall tax could fix many of the problems that we face immediately. All it takes is political will and a determination to improve the lives of the people you are supposed to serve.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Neale Hanvey]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I mean “the people the Government are supposed to serve”.

What is clear, and what I do not think has been mentioned by anyone today—although it has been mentioned many times outside this place—is that poverty is a deliberate political choice. Scotland is replete with energy, far more than we could ever possibly need, but our people see no benefit from that. Contracts for difference, along with asymmetric and uncompetitive transmission costs, impede any inward investment in Scotland. We should be in the vanguard of the renewables sector manufacturing industry, but unfortunately there is precious little manufacturing happening in Scotland.

It is not just Westminster that is at fault. This brings me back to the point made by the Minister a moment ago. The Scottish Government shamefully sold off ScotWind licences for relative pennies—£700 million. They set a ceiling on the bids. Bids for a much smaller licence in the United States realised $4.37 billion.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to speak on Her Majesty’s programme for Government for this Session. There are many things to be welcomed in it, and since I am by and large a positive person, I will start with those. I very much welcome the commitment by Government to the modern slavery Bill. It is an issue that I have pursued, and I have supported the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and others in the House on it. It is good news that we will see the end of the use of dubious supply chains and labour. The Uyghur Muslims are one of those groups of people who we are trying to protect. Justice is our topic today, and the Bill is a massive step forward in doing just the right thing, and I fully support it.

I also welcome that the Minister has given a commitment on two occasions in response to questions from our party about those who preach the gospel and preachers on the street. I also welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment earlier when she referred to the £187 million for victim support. Some clarification is needed on that, but she was very keen that contact should be made between Westminster and the Northern Ireland Assembly to see how we can make things better.

I very much welcome the national security Bill, because this Government—our Government—have been very clear about how they address issues of national security. Whether it is taking on terrorists—ISIS/Daesh or IRA—or the terrible atrocities by Russia in Ukraine, our Government stand firm and I thank them for that.

I also welcome the support for nuclear power stations. I ask that Northern Ireland be given consideration as the only part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that does not have its own power supply. I welcome the change in planning, although I do want to look at how that will work if someone can object and the problems that there will be. There is a planning commitment to providing affordable houses, however, and I hope that some of that will trickle down to us in Northern Ireland where the planners appear to refuse as standard unless an exceptional case is made to prove why they cannot legislatively prevent something.

My note of caution is that that change cannot be permitted to prevent agricultural growth and our food sustainability goals. I see the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), sitting on the Front Bench, and I know that her commitment is to agricultural growth and food sustainability.

I also welcome the commitment to addressing the issue of those who block the roads, superglue their hands, lie on top of tube trains and are basically obstructive—I spoke to the Home Secretary about that earlier. I have protested legally on many occasions and I was born in a decade when protesting was the norm, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said, so I understand the importance of it. I also understand, however, that people should not stop other people getting to work, nurses turning up for their job or a man earning his money. I express concern about something that I read in the press last week about a lady who was fined and jailed for taking her child to school. I have spoken to the Minister and I hope that that matter can be reviewed satisfactorily.

The hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) referred to the review of cold cases, which is an interesting point. Coming from Northern Ireland, I am a great believer in that and I would like to see cold cases where nobody has been made amenable being investigated.

This debate is about delivering justice and we need to deliver justice for the Northern Ireland protocol. That should have been made a priority—there is no other way of putting it. The Government have repeated time and again that the Good Friday agreement is at the heart of negotiations, which I support, but they have repeatedly failed to prioritise Northern Ireland’s constitutional place within the United Kingdom. The accountability in relation to the protocol lies with Westminster and it is crucial to the political stability of Northern Ireland that the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland listen to the concerns of the people.

The cost increase of an increasing number of goods in Northern Ireland is a clear result of the protocol. Removing the restrictions forced on us by the EU should be a priority of the Brexit freedoms Bill. I remain disappointed that we did not see that in the Queen’s Speech, but I am encouraged by the fact that the Prime Minister has had meetings and that the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs has said in the papers in the last two days that the Government intend to take action. I have heard words of action before, but I believe in actions of action, so I look forward to seeing what will happen in the next period of time in relation to that. I know that it is not an easy job to do.

To give an example, a businessman in my constituency who supplies shops in every corner of the Province told me that some of his nationalist friends—people with a different political opinion who are his friends—had asked whether the DUP, my party, would be able to get the protocol sorted. My friend said, quite rightly, “Go and speak to your own MP,” but they said, “My MP is a nationalist MP and he wouldn’t like it if I spoke to him.” On behalf of all those across the Province who have been crippled by the protocol, whatever their religious persuasion and political opinion, I share with this Chamber the tales they have told.

In Belfast last week, the elections sent a clear message that all Unionist candidates oppose the protocol and the number of Unionists vastly outnumbers those of a nationalist point of view. People are facing rising costs for power and transporting goods. Increasingly, to save hassle, they are sourcing from other places when they want to buy their goods from the United Kingdom and the mainland. We need action to rectify the mistakes made.

I listened with great respect to the comments of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) yesterday. She said that, when she negotiated the deal, she had designed one to respect the Northern Ireland position. I wholeheartedly disagreed with her, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). We were sacrificed to secure the deal, and we have paid enough. The Brexit freedoms Bill must give us back our freedom, and I believe the freedom to buy British goods must be part of that. We want the same opportunity as people have elsewhere. It is little wonder that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley is waiting to see the substance of scrapping the protocol, not more suggestions for tweaking it. It is not tweaking we want; as I think the paper says, it has to be absolutely done away with, and that is what the Foreign Secretary was saying.

As one businessman said to me, “We are trying to rebuild after covid, yet if we build on a non-stable foundation”—I could be biblical on this, but I will not be—“the structure will tumble”. The Northern Ireland protocol is not a stable foundation, and unless we have one soon, businesses will crumble and the cost of living will skyrocket further. Again, I ask the Government to do the right thing, and I put that on record. If we are going to deliver justice, and that is what we are about—everyone in this House is delivering justice—then the justice has to be that the Northern Ireland protocol is ditched.

Stormont only works with consensus. We do not have a system of majority rule, as many of my hon. Friends have pointed out over the past few years, but power sharing. If Unionists are not on board, there can be no power sharing. Let us get it right, and get our people into positions on a stable foundation. This is a priority. The priority should not be cultural expressions or an Irish language Act, for instance; it should be enabling people to heat their home, feed their family and access medical care. Those pushing for limited finances to be spent in other ways need to go into the estates and into pensioners’ bungalows, and to look these struggling people in the face. Every right hon. and hon. Member who has spoken today has mentioned the cost of living, and rightly so. We must address all those issues, and we need to do it well.

I have one last point on the Queen’s Speech, which is about the legacy issue. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead very kindly let me intervene on her about this yesterday. I want to put on record my concerns about any legacy Bill that does not address totally, fully and in a very embracing fashion those who have lost loved ones in the troubles.

I think of many people I know, and I think of them often. I think of the Ballydugan Four, and I knew three of those boys extremely well. They were murdered, and I will be at a church service on Sunday to remember them some 32 years after they were murdered. Nobody has been made accountable, and I want justice for those families—I say that because they are my constituents, but I say it because I mean it as well. I want justice for Stuart Montgomery, who was murdered outside Pomeroy many years ago. He was only 18 years old, just out of the police training college, and never has anybody been made accountable for him. I want justice for those in La Mon who were murdered in a violent way, I want justice for those in the Abercorn and I want justice for those in the Darkley gospel hall. No one from the IRA has been made accountable for what they did on those occasions. I want justice for those who carried out the Kingsmill massacre and the Omagh atrocity. Those are the things I need to see. I want justice for my cousin Kenneth Smyth, who was murdered by the IRA. No one has ever been made accountable for him.

When it comes to the legacy, the legacy I want from this Government is a legacy for my constituents, my families, my relatives and the people of Northern Ireland who want justice to be done to those who murdered their loved ones and have never seen anything happening for it. A mother’s tears are the same regardless of their political persuasion or religion, and each deserves compassion, respect and, above all, truth. I have real concerns that the Bill will not provide this, and I will be anxious to see the detail of all the legislation and to listen to the views of the victims. They do not have law centres behind them or millions of pounds of public money, but simply miss their loved ones and do not want them to be forgotten. These people have paid a daily cost, and we cannot leave anyone behind while it is clear that Northern Ireland must move forward together.

I welcome the economic crime Bill. I also welcome the Bill to reform the Mental Health Act. I will watch how that goes, but others have spoken about it. I will conclude by saying that I welcome Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, but I am asking her Government to do the right thing by us in Northern Ireland. They should do the right thing constitutionally for us, but also do the right thing practically, such as by directing funding to help with the cost of living, addressing the waiting lists and educating our children. They must put political aims on the back burner, and work practically towards ensuring that every home can afford heat, light and food. Those are rudimentary things, yet things that too many homes feel they must choose between. This I believe cannot be accepted in any region of this glorious United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—always better together.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Steve Reed.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: Second Report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Legislative Scrutiny: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, Part 3 (Public Order), HC 331; Fifth Special Report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Legislative Scrutiny: Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, Part 3 (Public Order): Government Response to the Committee’s Second Report, HC 724.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Financial privilege is not engaged by any of the items in the Lords message relating to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

Clause 55

Imposing conditions on public processions

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I beg to move,

That this House insists on its disagreement with Lords in their Amendment 73, insists on its Amendment 73C to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement to that Amendment, insists on its Amendment 74A to Lords Amendment 74, disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment 74B to that Amendment in lieu, disagrees with the Lords in their consequential Amendments 74C, 74D, 74E, 74F and 74G, insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 87, insists on its Amendments 87A, 87B, 87C, 87D, 87E, 87F and 87H to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement to that Amendment but proposes Amendment (a) in lieu of Lords Amendment 73 and additional Amendment (b) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 87.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to consider the following Government motion:

That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 80, insists on its Amendments 80A, 80B, 80C, 80D, 80E, 80F and 80H to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with that Amendment, disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment 80J instead of the words left out by that Amendment but proposes additional Amendment (a) to the words restored to the Bill by its disagreement with the Lords in their Amendment 80.

[Kit Malthouse]

I rise to speak to the motions in the name of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, including the associated amendments in lieu. We return yet again, I have to say with a smidgin of ennui and irritation, to the issue of police powers to attach conditions to protests. It is disappointing that the debate on these provisions continues to be characterised by misinformation about what the Bill actually does and irrationality.

I shall start with the issue of noise. As I said in round 2 of ping-pong, at the Opposition’s behest, we have added provisions to the Bill that can be used to limit noise and disruptive protests outside schools and vaccination centres. I am therefore at a loss to understand why they would not agree to these provisions outside, say, a convent, a hospital, an animal sanctuary or, God forbid, a factory. What happened to the workers’ rights?

It cannot be that a protest can inflict any amount of noise on those living or working in the vicinity for prolonged periods of time, day or night. I agree that it would not be necessary or proportionate, for example, to attach conditions relating to the generation of noise to a procession that will pass a particular location within a matter of hours, but the same cannot be said of an ongoing raucous protest, perhaps encamped in a residential area, which includes the banging of drums and the use of loudhailers. It is intolerable that local residents should have to endure that day and night, and it is right that in those circumstances, the police should have the power to act. I do not understand why those residents’ rights are so lightly set aside by the Opposition. When the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) rises to address the motions, I hope she will answer that question.

I can, however, assure the hon. Members for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson)—they questioned me on this in the last round—that there are no new powers here to restrict what is said and, for that matter, sung. These provisions are simply about the harm caused by excessive noise; the content is irrelevant. Of course, the existing criminal law relating to hate or intimidatory speech will continue to apply.

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[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I am sorry that the Minister finds himself bored by the democratic process, but this is the process, and sadly he has to come to the Dispatch Box to engage in this debate. There is one—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Lady is giving a speech. Carry on, Sarah Jones.

[Sarah Jones]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not mind how noisy the Minister is; I do not want to curtail his right to be as noisy as he likes.

We are debating one topic: the right to protest and make noise. We have indeed debated it several times. Members from across the House have spoken passionately about why this issue matters, and why the Government have got this so wrong. One might think that, with crime up 14%, the arrest rate having halved since 2010, and prosecution rates at an all-time low, the Government might spend their time on the bread-and-butter issues of law and order, such as fighting criminals. Instead, they seem intent on criminalising singing at peaceful protests. That suggests that the Government are tired, out of ideas and have no plan, and are searching round for anything eye-catching to distract from their years of failure.

The Lords responded to the Minister’s defence of his policy by voting against it again. Lords amendments 73 and 87 remove the Government’s proposed noise trigger, which would allow the police to put conditions on marches or one-person protests that are “too noisy”. Labour agrees with the Lords, and we support Lords amendment 80, which removes clause 56 from the Bill altogether. As with most Government policies thought up on the hoof, there are many questions about how the proposed powers would work.

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[Sarah Jones]

The right hon. Member brings a lot of experience to the House, and I listen to him carefully. I agree with him about noisy neighbours, which are a distressing part of my case load because we often struggle hard to do something about it. However, the Bill does not do anything on that; it is about protests. We need to be clear that those are two completely different things. There are rules on antisocial behaviour and neighbours, and local authorities and the police have powers to deal with that—sadly, often those cases do not get dealt with—but that is not what we are arguing about.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. May I give a little reminder that interventions should be quite brief?

[Sir Mike Penning]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, you made my point exactly. With respect to the shadow Minister, they are different, and I agree that the Bill has nothing to do with noisy neighbours, but noisy demonstrations blight people’s lives in exactly the same way, and that is why the legislation is trying to do something about them.

We may disagree, and that is probably right and proper—this place is about debating and not just agreeing with each other all the time—but the principle must be that this House, with huge majorities, has voted for these measures. I respect many of the people on both sides of the other House—they bring huge amounts of experience—but they are not elected. They should listen to this House and consider the size of the majority. If it had been tiny, we could argue about the principle, but it was not, and the measures have been voted through. On that, I completely agree with the Minister, who is in the position where I used to be.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Anne McLaughlin.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 22.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 24, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 23, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 25, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 26, and Government motion to disagree, and amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendment 27, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 40, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 28 to 39, 42 and 41.

[Tom Pursglove]

We now turn to the remaining amendments. Amendment 22 relates to our plans for conducting assessments of age-disputed people. Scientific methods of age assessment are already in use by many European countries, and the Bill will bring us into line with them. Failure to ensure proper assessments creates obvious safeguarding concerns and, of course, can create a plethora of risks to the most vulnerable when we get it wrong. I know those concerns are shared across the House. This amendment creates numerous restrictions on our ability to use age assessments in practice.

First, I want to make it very clear there is no appetite to start conducting comprehensive age assessments where there is no doubt about someone’s claimed age. Such an approach would serve no purpose whatsoever and would take significant resources away from the main task of seeking to establish the age of those involved where age is in doubt. However, there is no question but that the system is being abused, and we need to put a stop to that.

Secondly, the amendment would require that only local authority social workers could undertake age assessments under the Bill. There is significant variation in the experience and capacity of local authorities to undertake these age assessments, which are a significant resource burden on them. The Home Office already leads on other vulnerability areas, with responsibility for making complex and significant decisions such as claims for asylum. For these reasons, we are seeking to establish a national age assessment board comprising qualified social workers employed by the Home Office who may undertake age assessments upon referral by a local authority. Local authorities will retain the ability to conduct these assessments if they wish to do so.

Thirdly, the amendment would ensure that scientific methods of age assessment are specified only if they are considered ethical and accurate beyond reasonable doubt and approved by relevant professional bodies.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Before I call the shadow Minister, I should say that I will need to impose a time limit, which will probably start off at five minutes. Apart from Members who have an amendment down, I will be prioritising those who did not speak in the previous debate.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be responding for Labour to this second group of Lords amendment to the Bill, and I want to start by joining others in paying tribute to those who lost their lives or were injured in, and all those who responded to, the attack on Westminster five years ago today. I pay particular tribute to PC Keith Palmer and thank all those who work so hard to keep us safe every day.

I intend to keep my remarks tightly to the amendments before us, particularly Lords amendments 24 to 27, but I want to start by again expressing regret that modern slavery provisions have been included in a Bill on immigration. Members might remember that on Report I was intervened on only by Conservative MPs seeking to agree with me—which is certainly unusual—that the provisions in the Bill on modern slavery will only take us backwards. If this Bill passes unamended we will identify and protect fewer victims of modern slavery and identify and prosecute fewer perpetrators. That is not only our view: the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner has been fierce in her opposition to a number of the changes, and Caroline Haughey QC, one of the leading legal experts in this area, has said this Bill will

“catastrophically undo all that has been achieved in the 10 years since the first modern slavery prosecution.”

Lords amendment 27 seeks to exempt child victims from the most damaging of the Bill’s provisions and ensure that all decisions are made in their best interests. Throughout the passage of the Bill we have voiced our concerns that the Government fail to recognise that identifying victims of modern slavery or human trafficking is a safeguarding, not an immigration, matter. Last year, 43% of victims referred to the national referral mechanism were children, with 31% of them being British, and the rise in county lines gangs is believed to be one of the biggest drivers of the rise in child referrals.

This amendment must also be considered in light of what is currently happening in Ukraine and the reports by charity and aid agencies on the ground of the heightened risks of children being exploited and trafficked along the Ukrainian border and in neighbouring countries, such is the flow of people away from the Russian bombardment. If the Minister is not minded to strike part 5 from the Bill and work with the sector and us on genuine alternatives, he must protect children from the worst of the changes, which only put barriers between victims and the support and justice they need and deserve.

If the Government are to deliver on their own promise of smashing county lines, they must accept Lords amendment 27. The Government’s own existing statutory guidance states:

“Whatever form it takes, modern slavery and child trafficking is child abuse and relevant child protection procedures…must be followed if modern slavery or trafficking is suspected.”

Under the changes introduced in the Bill a child can access protection only if they disclose details of their trauma against a Home Office-mandated timeline, and can access NRM support only if they have no public order offences in their background. The Government’s own guidance rightly says that a child who has been trafficked must be protected, no ifs, no buts—which means no clause 63, no clause 66 and no clause 67 as a condition of support on recognition as being a victim. As a minimum, in order for the Government just to adhere to their own guidance and protect child victims of trafficking, they must adopt Lords amendment 27 to prevent changes that would leave children more vulnerable to criminals and traffickers.

In Committee, at the 12th sitting, the Minister stressed that the Government’s view was that it would somehow be unfair to establish a system that distinguishes between a child and an adult, and he has repeated that sentiment today. He said in Committee:

“To create a carve-out for one group of individuals would create a two-tiered system based on the age at which exploitation may have taken place”,

and went on to say that it

“would not be appropriate or fair to all victims.”––[Official Report, Nationality and Borders Public Bill Committee, 28 October 2021; c. 484.]

I am afraid that is just absurd: we differentiate between children and adults throughout domestic legislation, recognising the age-related vulnerability of children, and it is the very basis of the Government’s own age assessment proposals in the Bill. Child victims have rights to protection under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child and the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings, and it is there in the Government’s own guidance. If the Minister is really trying to tell us that the Government do not like creating two-tier systems given what else the Bill does, we are simply not having it. I urge the Government to follow their own guidance, recognise that child victims of trafficking are victims of abuse and adopt Lords amendment 27.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I think I will have to reduce the time limit to four minutes after the contribution from the SNP spokesperson.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am afraid that I have to reduce the time limit to three minutes.

[Richard Fuller]

I want the UK to be known as a place of refuge and justice as well as a place of opportunity and freedom. When examining immigration Bills over the years, I have always looked to see where there could be an issue of moral hazard in what is being proposed and the changes being made. In this Bill, my eyes were immediately drawn to clause 62 and to Lords amendment 25. The title of clause 62 is “Identified potential victims etc: disqualification from protection”. The clause is replete with moral hazards in whatever actions the Government might take. As it happens, I do not think that the Government have got the balance right, but I am also not sure that the Lords amendment is quite right.

My request to the Minister, who is ably managing the Bill, is to continue the conversation with their lordships on this provision, because of the risks of moral hazard. For example, is it really right that we should continue to include taking away this protection from children? Is it right that we should continue to have a provision that someone who in their past has undertaken a crime under duress should be liable to the protections being taken away? The Minister has argued that it is important to define this, so that the issues of public order can be applied, and I see some relevance there, but why is it important to rely so heavily on information that relates to an individual’s past, rather than take into account their circumstances and the potential risk they pose today? That balance has not been struck correctly.

The noble Lords Coaker and Randall in the other place sought to correct that by trying to draw a tighter definition about the risks, stating that there has to be

“an immediate, genuine, present and serious threat”,

but I think they have overcooked it a little bit. It is quite a lot to say that all those criteria have to apply. Between the Government’s present criteria, which rely too much on an individual’s past, and the Lords amendment, which is drawn a bit too tightly about where these protections should be applied, there is scope for the Government to find some ground for compromise. I certainly hope so.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and notice of it. I have received no notice from Ministers that they intend to make a statement on this matter, but I am confident that the House and Ministers on the Front Bench will have heard the point of order she has raised.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, in the same debate on P&O Ferries, I said that a spokesperson for the UK Chamber of Shipping had said in an interview on Radio 4

“that he was ‘content and very confident’ that P&O had acted properly.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 75.]

The UK Chamber of Shipping has asked me to point out that it had in fact said that it was

“content and very confident that P&O will have put procedures in place to ensure that the individuals that are going to be in control of those vessels would be familiar with the ships and the systems and would be competent to operate those vessels in a safe manner.”

I am happy to make that clear. Given the enthusiasm of the Chamber for its position being properly understood, it would probably be its wish that I should point out to the House that in that same interview the spokesperson for the UK Chamber of Shipping was asked in relation to different matters whether he condemned the manner in which this was done and he said:

“I can’t comment on the conduct of it”.

When the interviewer said that he must have an opinion, he said,

“I would be speculating so I can’t possibly comment.”

Then, when he was told that usually when more than 100 people have been sacked, the Government have to be told 45 days in advance, he again said, “I can’t comment.” It is curious therefore, however, that in relation to the contentment and confidence about the safety measures he did seem to be quite happy about that. Today, the UK Chamber of Shipping tells me that it does not condone the actions of P&O. That of course is very different from the full-throated condemnation that we might have hoped for, but I am sure that the House will want to be made aware of the position.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am sure the House will be grateful that he has corrected the record and, at the same time, made clear the other information that he wished to add to what he said previously. The record is corrected and I am sure we are all grateful for that.

Police Custody: Rights of Minors

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) for bringing these matters to the House, despite the lateness of the hour, and I acknowledge the importance of the topic in front of us this evening. I thank her constituent Deborah, who I understand is here, and I very much thank the hon. Lady for telling the story of her constituent and her son Jayden. I also acknowledge that we have Dr Miranda Bevan with us and I will speak about her contribution later in my remarks.

Custody is a core element of the criminal justice system and is critical for maintaining public confidence, obtaining intelligence, bringing offenders to justice and keeping the public safe. However, children should only be detained in custody when absolutely necessary. Where there are opportunities to divert children away, these must be considered. It is right and proper that children are acknowledged as a protected group with specific needs. Their treatment in detention is governed not only by domestic legislation, but by the UN convention on the rights of the child, which the UK has signed and ratified.

Everyone who works with children has a responsibility to keep them safe. Specific safeguards apply to children detained in custody, including a legal requirement for an appropriate adult to be present for interviews and strip-searches, if they take place, to ensure their rights are protected. Officers must take into consideration a child’s age when deciding whether it is necessary to arrest them and determining the time at which an arrest takes place.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 places a legal limit of 24 hours on how long an individual can be detained in custody by the police before they must be charged with an offence or released. It can be extended by an officer of superintendent rank or above under certain circumstances, and further by a court up to a total of 96 hours. These legal limits apply to both children and adults. Police officers must follow those requirements when detaining children in custody. The hon. Lady has referred to a case where she is stating that that did not take place, and I know that she is raising that complaint with the specific force—I think in her case that is the Met police—or with the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

It is right that these procedures and requirements are subject to scrutiny and oversight. That is why Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services regularly inspects police custody suites. Via its inspection programmes of approximately nine forces a year, it monitors the treatment and welfare of children in custody and makes recommendations for police forces and partners in maintaining and where necessary raising service delivery. We expect forces to respond to those recommendations and take action when concerns are raised.

The hon. Lady has raised an excellent point about the opportunity of a custody period for the police to engage with those young people who might be involved in crime and pursue possible diversionary activity to prevent them from becoming further involved in the criminal justice system. We recognise that this is a perfect moment for that to take place. Several London custody suites have youth workers physically present to support detained children and engage with them and their parents.

The hon. Lady spoke about training for police forces and she is right to recognise that. The police uplift introduced by the Conservative Government is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to increase the diversity of the police. Attracting a broad range of talent, cultures and backgrounds to policing is a core ambition in our drive to recruit 20,000 additional police officers, and we are working really hard to deliver the diverse police workforce that our communities need by co-ordinating efforts between Government and policing not only to attract more diverse candidates into policing, but to ensure it is a career where all recruits can thrive. We have recruited more than 11,000 additional officers as part of that programme.

I am pleased to say that the police officer workforce is more representative than ever. The latest data shows the highest proportion of minority ethnic and female officers since records began. There are now more than 10,000 black, Asian and minority ethnic officers across the police workforce. The Met police are our most diverse force, with 5,479 officers from minority ethnic backgrounds as of 31 December 2021 and some 21.4% of its joiners since April 2020 coming from those communities, but of course we must keep going further.

The hon. Lady is right that it is not simply about numbers; the training and cultural competence that officers possess is critical to successful policing. The College of Policing’s foundation training for all those entering the service includes substantial coverage of police ethics and self-understanding, including the effects of personal conscious and unconscious bias. The initial training undertaken by all officers also covers hate crimes, ethics and equalities, and policing without bias.

Further training is then provided in specialist areas throughout an officer’s career. For example, training for police investigators includes a specific focus on bias, policing fairly and the practical effects of those fundamentals on the investigation process. Training for those involved in public protection includes methods to raise officers’ self-awareness of their own views, stereotypes and biases. We agree with the hon. Lady that it is vital that all police officers have the right competences and values, and an understanding, especially when dealing with the most vulnerable in our society.

The hon. Lady mentioned the important work carried out by Dr Miranda Bevan of the London School of Economics looking at and working with the National Appropriate Adult Network. Together they have recently developed video guidance for family members acting as appropriate adults to ensure that they can effectively support their children while detained. We are grateful for that work, which is groundbreaking and provides easily accessible information in what is often the most difficult of circumstances. The Home Office has been deeply involved in the development of that innovative project and will be working to raise its profile through as wide a dissemination as possible. We agree with the hon. Lady that it is an incredibly helpful piece of work.

Home Office officials are also engaged with research funded by the Nuffield Foundation to examine the impact of PACE on the detention and questioning of children and to explore the merits of a more child-centred approach to the police custody experience. We look forward to the findings of that research and will consider its recommendations carefully.

This is a vital issue and I repeat my earlier thanks to the hon. Lady for securing the debate. I am clear that, although it is vital for public safety that the police should have the required legislative powers to detain people in custody, they must use them judiciously, appropriately and within the law. Police custody suites must be safe places for everyone and that of course applies to children.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I may not adjourn the House until I have notified the Royal Assent to any Act relating to the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill, agreed upon by both Houses. The House is accordingly suspended. I will arrange for the Division bells to be sounded a few minutes before the sitting is resumed.

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royal assent

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2022

National Insurance Contributions Act 2022

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I am pretty sure that they will hear that warning when they look back at this debate.

I do not often quote Lenin, but it is probably appropriate. As he famously said,

“A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends,”

which is also true of the Bill. It will do great harm to the Russian economy and to our adversaries in Russia, but it will also do some harm to us—or at least, the retaliation will—and it will particularly hit the least well-off. We will see greater price inflation, less growth, less trade and therefore fewer jobs. We must recognise that when we undertake what we are doing here. We can make Russia a pariah state but Putin will retaliate, and we must be ready. We need to be ready for fuel crises, cyber-attacks and ludicrous threats from the Kremlin.

Beyond the Bill, there are many further things that we can do in the west and we should be ready to do them. To pick one example, the allies should be ready to reduce every Russian embassy to a bare minimum—to skeleton status—by the expulsion of diplomats at the first sign of retaliatory action from Russia. It must be clear to Russia that it will pay if it retaliates again.

We have said, and we must keep saying, that the Bill is not aimed at punishing the Russian people—that is incredibly important. It should target the Russian Government, Putin and his henchmen, which is why the actions in the Bill against oligarchs are as important as the actions against Russian banks and commercial institutions. There was some briefing from Whitehall over the weekend that implied that they are not, but that is wrong.

We have all heard the rumours that Putin has something like $200 billion of personal wealth. He does not hold any of it himself; it is held by the 140-plus oligarchs around the world. Targeting them, therefore, is at least as important as targeting the Russian state banks. To do that properly, we must act fast, which is the thrust of my new clause 29, which I will speak to later in Committee.

We should not kid ourselves. This is not an economic crime Bill, but an economic warfare Bill, and it is a war that liberal democracies cannot afford to lose.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call SNP spokesperson Alison Thewliss.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am going to introduce a five-minute time limit. However, I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that, if they take less time than that, we will get to Committee stage more quickly, as they might wish to do. Those who particularly wish to speak in Committee might bear that in mind as well.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I have no problem with interventions, but it would be helpful to other colleagues, especially if the House wants to get on to the Committee stage, if Members could stick to their five minutes even if they take interventions.

TOEIC English Language Tests

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before we come to the next urgent question, I want to inform the House that I am aware that there are certain live court cases that are relevant. Given the importance of the subject matter, Mr Speaker has granted a limited waiver to allow general reference to the issues, but Members should not refer to the detail of live cases.

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[Kevin Foster]

As the hon. Member says, we now have a very strong system of English language tuition and of both universities and other higher education institutions sponsoring under our student route. That works very well, is highly compliant and is an absolute world away from the system that existed 12 years ago. On what he suggests about other areas, there is the ability, as I have said, for people to make private life applications if they are here in the UK. However, on the wider position, I think it makes eminent sense, given that we are awaiting a determination from the highest tribunal in effect—the upper tribunal presidential panel—to actually have that determination and then consider what the next steps will be, rather than to announce something speculative.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Minister for answering the urgent question.

Asylum Seeker Accommodation: RAF Manston

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I must say I have some sympathy with the need to act quickly bearing in mind the scale of the problem, so I do not really have concerns about the lack of consultation. Does the Minister agree with me, though, that if individuals are concerned about the quality of the accommodation, the simple answer to that is to not come over here illegally and actually apply for asylum in the safe European country in which they are present? They are not from Afghanistan; they are in France. It is hardly surprising that the Opposition opposes this—I know you would like them all to be in four and five-star hotels; you have made that quite clear—but will the Minister promise me that offshore processing is being looked into seriously?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must not refer across the Chamber to the shadow Minister as “you”. I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows by now that when he uses that phraseology he is referring to the Chair, so I ask him to observe the conventions. I call the Minister.

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The point I make in response is that nobody should be getting in a small boat to find safety—nobody has any cause to do that. That is why we are so committed to safe and legal routes, for the very reasons he outlines: when people come through such routes, we can provide proper accommodation, support and services to support those individuals.

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), the Minister suggested that there was a good level of consultation with local authorities in Scotland. That is not consistent with the view from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which, I understand, is told after asylum seekers are accommodated—there is no engagement in advance. I wonder whether the Minister might reflect on the comments he made.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the point of order, which is more like a continuation of the urgent question. [Interruption.] I see that the Minister wishes to make a response.

[Tom Pursglove]

For the benefit of the House, I would just confirm that I was talking about Kent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I hope that is helpful. As I say, this is really not a matter for the Chair, but I hope we have had some clarification.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 4—Former British-Hong Kong service personnel: right of abode—

‘(1) The Immigration Act 1971 is amended as follows.

(2) At the end of section 2(1) insert—

“(c) that person is a former member of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps or the Hong Kong Royal Naval service, or

(d) that person is the spouse or dependent of a former member of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps or the Hong Kong Royal Naval service.”’

This new clause would mean that all former British-Hong Kong service personnel, plus their spouses and dependents, would have right of abode in the UK.

New clause 5—British National (Overseas) visas: eligibility—

‘(1) Within two months of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must amend the Immigration Rules to ensure that all persons meeting the condition set out in subsection (2) are eligible to apply for the British National (Overseas) visa.

(2) The condition referred to in subsection (1) is that the person has at least one parent who is a British national (overseas).’

This new clause would enable any persons from Hong Kong who have at least one parent who is a British national (overseas) to apply for the British National (Overseas) visa.

New clause 7—Exception to the requirement to pay fees in connection with immigration or nationality—

‘(1) In relation to an applicant meeting the criteria set out in subsection (2) of this section, the Secretary of State must by regulations provide for an exception to any requirement to pay fees set out in a fees order under section 68 (fees) of the Immigration Act 2014.

(2) The criteria referred to in subsection (1) are that the applicant has—

(a) lawfully resided in the UK for a minimum period of five years, and

(b) lawfully worked in a clinical capacity for the National Health Service anywhere in the United Kingdom for an unbroken period of three years

provided that, if the applicant leaves the employment of the National Health Service in any part of the United Kingdom within the three years following a successful application in respect of which the applicant was exempted from paying fees, those fees become payable on termination of employment in the National Health Service.’

This new clause exempts clinical NHS workers from the fees associated with immigration and nationality, provided that they have lived lawfully in the UK for at least five years, worked in the NHS for at least three years, and continue to work in the NHS for a further three years after being granted the fee exemption.

New clause 8—Children registering as British citizens: fees—

‘(1) Within two months of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must amend the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018.

(2) The amendments referred to in subsection (1) must include—

(a) provision to ensure that the fees charged for applications for registration as a British citizen under the British Nationality Act 1981 or the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1997, where the person in respect of whom the application is made is a child at the time the application is made, do not exceed the cost to the Home Office of processing the application;

(b) provision to ensure that no fees are charged for applications for registration as a British Citizen under the British Nationality Act 1981 or the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1997 where the person in respect of whom the application is made—

(i) is a child being looked after by a local authority at the time the application is made; or

(ii) was looked after by a local authority when they were a child, and at the time the application is made is either—

(A) under the age of 21; or

(B) under the age of 25 and in full-time education.

(3) Within six months of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report setting out the effect of such fees on the human rights of the children applying for registration as British citizens under the British Nationality Act 1981 and the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1997.’

In respect of children registering as British citizens, this new clause would prevent the Home Office from charging a fee which exceeds the cost of processing the application. It would also abolish such fees altogether for looked-after children until they reach the age of 21 (or 25 if in full-time education), and would require the Government to produce a report setting out the effect of such fees on children’s human rights.

New clause 22—Requirement for the Secretary of State to waive the full capacity requirement—

‘(1) In section 44A of the British Nationality Act 1981, for “may” substitute “should”.’

This would give effect to the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to require the Secretary of State to waive the requirement for a person to have full capacity if it is in that person‘s best interests to do so.

New clause 25—Birthright commitment under the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement 1998—

‘(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the date of Royal Assent to this Act, produce a report setting out how the UK Government will give statutory effect to the recognition set out in the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement 1998 of the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may choose.

(2) The Secretary of State must lay the report before each House of Parliament.’

New clause 33—Acquisition of British citizenship by birth or adoption: comprehensive sickness insurance—

‘(1) The British Nationality Act 1981 is amended as follows.

(2) After subsection 1(3A) insert—

(a) a person born in the United Kingdom after commencement who is not a British citizen is entitled, on application, to register as a British citizen if the person’s father or mother would have been settled in the United Kingdom at the time of the person’s birth, if Assumption A had applied.

(b) assumption A is that, in assessing whether the person’s father or mother met a requirement to have held comprehensive sickness insurance, this is to be regarded as having been satisfied whenever they

(i) had access to the NHS in practice; or

(ii) held a comprehensive sickness insurance policy.

(c) registration under this subsection shall be free of charge.”

(3) After section 50A insert—

“50B Exceptions

(a) is not to be treated as having been in the United Kingdom in breach of the immigration laws during a period of time that has been counted as part of a continuous qualifying period in a grant of leave to that person under Appendix EU of the Immigration Rules, and

(b) is not to be treated as not being of good character on account of a failure to hold comprehensive sickness insurance during some period of residence in the UK.”

(4) The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 is amended as follows.

(5) After section 15, insert—

“15A Comprehensive sickness insurance

(1) For the purposes of any decision taken by a public authority under this Part after commencement of this section, a person is to be treated as having met a requirement to have held comprehensive sickness insurance, whenever they—

(a) had access to the NHS in practice; or

(b) held a comprehensive sickness insurance policy.

(2) This section shall in particular apply to any decisions taken under residence scheme immigration rules.”’

This new clause provides that a person seeking to acquire permanent residence documents, naturalisation or citizenship need not have had comprehensive sickness insurance prior to applying for citizenship.

New clause 34—Registration as a British citizen or British overseas territories citizen: Fees—

‘(1) No person may be charged a fee to be registered as a British citizen or British overseas territories citizen that is higher than the cost to the Secretary of State of exercising the function of registration.

(2) No child may be charged a fee to be registered as a British citizen or British overseas territories citizen if that child is being looked after by a local authority.

(3) No child may be charged a fee to be registered as a British citizen or British overseas territories citizen that the child or the child’s parent, guardian or carer is unable to afford.

(4) The Secretary of State must take steps to raise awareness of rights under the British Nationality Act 1981 to be registered as a British citizen or British overseas territories citizen among people possessing those rights.’

This new clause would ensure that fees for registering as a British citizen or British overseas territories citizen do not exceed cost price. It would also ensure that children being looked after by a local authority are not liable for such fees, and that no child is charged an unaffordable fee. Lastly, it would require the Government to raise awareness of rights to registration.

Amendment 108, in clause 3, page 8, line 33, leave out subsection (4).

This would give effect to the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to remove the good character requirement for a person applying for British overseas territories citizenship who has previously been discriminated against where this could perpetuate that discrimination.

Amendment 12, page 11, line 35, leave out clause 9.

This amendment would remove clause 9, which would enable the Home Secretary to deprive UK nationals of citizenship without notice.

Government amendments 17 and 18.

Amendment 2, page 12, line 33, leave out clause 10.

This amendment would remove clause 10, which restricts entitlement to British citizenship for children born stateless in the UK.

Amendment 111, in clause 10, page 13, line 23, after “birth”, insert

“without any legal or administrative barriers”.

This would give effect to the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to ensure that, in compliance with Article 1 of the 1961 UN Statelessness Convention, British citizenship is only withheld from a stateless child born in the UK where the nationality of a parent is available to the child immediately, without any legal or administrative hurdles.

Amendment 110, in clause 10, page 13, line 27, at end insert—

“(d) in all the circumstances, it would be in the best interests of the child for it to acquire the nationality in question.”

This would give effect to the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to ensure that the best interests of the child are central to decision-making in deciding whether to grant or decline an application for British citizenship by a stateless child who was born in the UK.

[Henry Smith]

The Chagos islanders have suffered over half a century of consistent injustices. They were forcibly exiled from their homeland, the Chagos islands—Diego Garcia and outer islands such as Peros Banhos—by the Harold Wilson Administration in the late 1960s to make way for a military base, and they were typically relocated against their will in Mauritius, but also in the Seychelles and other locations.

There are many aspects of the injustices suffered by the Chagos islanders on which I and many other hon. and right hon. Members across the House have campaigned, such as a right of resettlement, a right to compensation—a package has still not been fully realised to any extent at all—and a right to self-determination. It is London, Washington, the UN in New York or Port Louis that is seeking to decide their future sovereign status.

However, there is another injustice that has been suffered by descendants of Chagos islanders: the denial of their moral rights to British overseas territory citizenship. It is no fault of the grandchildren and other descendants of the Chagos islanders that their forebears were forcibly removed from their homeland and essentially dumped in other parts of the Indian ocean, but it has meant that they have lost their rights to British overseas territory citizenship. Had those individuals been born in other overseas territories, such as Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands or Bermuda, they would have a right to British overseas territory citizenship. This is causing great hardship for many families, and dividing many communities as a result.

Those who were born on the Chagos islands and the direct children of those born on the Chagos islands do have a right to British overseas territory citizenship and therefore British citizenship. They are able to settle in this country, and are productive members of our wider society. I am grateful that many have decided to live in my Crawley constituency. However, many grandchildren and other descendants of those islanders are technically seen as foreign nationals, and have to go through an expensive and rigorous visa process to be here, and then apply for indefinite leave to remain. That results in families with different nationality status and immigration status, often in the same household. Some are able to work and to access public funds and public services. Others are unable to, which creates issues in terms of housing overcrowding.

As I said, this community has suffered a series of injustices. It is the sort of thing you would expect to read in the history books of colonialism of several hundred years ago. We are not talking about many people either. We have just heard a lot about 20,000 Afghans evacuated from that country with the fall of Kabul. We have heard a lot about over 3 million BNO—British national overseas—citizens in Hong Kong with a potential right to settle in this country as a result of the increasing Chinese erosion of democracy there. With the Chagos Islanders, only numbers in the hundreds to low thousands would be eligible.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Perhaps I should give a little bit of guidance. There are two groups of amendments this afternoon. If colleagues wish to speak to the second group of amendments, they should wait until we get to that group. Obviously, many colleagues will want to speak in various parts of the debate, so it might be wise for colleagues to prioritise the groups that they wish to speak to. I shall prioritise those who have tabled amendments in this first group. I call David Davis.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I ask a question with respect to your ruling? I take it that I will be able to speak to my amendments in the second group in debate on that group, and that I do not have to address them now. Is that correct?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am sure that very careful consideration will be given to the tabled amendments, but some people may not get in on both groups. If there are votes on the first group, that will eat into the time for the second group.

[Mr Davis]

Thank you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not looking for a promise.

Before I talk about my amendment, for which I have a one-minute speech, let me address questions that my hon. Friends on the Government Benches asked the Opposition spokesman. He was asked whether he agrees with the idea of withdrawing citizenship, full stop. My answer is that the British Nationality Act 1981 gives too much power to the Home Secretary—[Interruption.] I will answer, if I am not interrupted. It gives too much power, without sufficient early judicial intervention. It allows for a right of appeal, but it does not require the right of application to court first, and given that we are talking about something as serious as citizenship, it should.

We should not give the state the power to take every right away from erstwhile citizens of the country. That is not just my view; it also happens to be that of our biggest ally. In my time in this House, I have only once had a visit, as it were, from the State Department of the United States, and that was on this policy. In some people’s view, we are leaving our “human detritus” out in the conflict zones of the middle east. Most of our allies, having started with that policy, have withdrawn it and are taking back their people to put them on trial in their own country. From a security point of view, this policy does not stand up in the view of our allies.

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This is an uncivilised, legally disputable removal of the rights of people. They may not be good people; if so, we should put them in front of our courts and punish them. That is how British justice should work. That is how British democracy should work. That is what we should do today.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I remind hon. Members that being fairly brief in remarks, as done admirably by David Davis, will allow more people to get in. I call the SNP spokesperson, Anne McLaughlin.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Even though the Scottish National party has fundamental disagreements with most of this horrific Bill, that is not the case for part 1, where we are in agreement with much of it. We support the efforts to correct some historical injustices of UK nationality law and bringing British citizenship and British overseas territories citizenship law back into line. It should have happened a long time ago, but we support that it is happening now. We pay tribute to the campaign groups that have continued to make the case over several years, including the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, and Amnesty International. However, there are a number of issues that I want to raise and I will start with the SNP’s new clauses.

New clause 34 would ensure that the Government do not profit from people registering as British citizens or British overseas citizens. Hon. Members might be interested to know that, in 2018, the Home Office made profits of £500 million by charging £500 million more than it cost to process applications. The cost to the Home Office of the registration process is about £372 a person, but to the person applying, it is a minimum of £1,100 for children and £1,200 for an adult. Why? More importantly, why does that matter? How does that affect someone’s life?

I would like to share a story that I told in Committee of someone who has become part of my family and the devastating impact that the extortionate fees had on his family life. Cambull—that is not his real name—came from Sudan. The village where he grew up was razed to the ground, everybody fled, and he did not know where the rest of his family were. He assumed that his brothers, sister, mother and father had died, but he did not know for sure. He kept hearing rumours over the years. He came here as an asylum seeker and got his refugee status. He worked in security on minimum wage, zero-hours contracts, but he had a diligent approach to his job and built a life for himself. But the need to know for sure what had happened to his family members was always in the back of his mind. Any of us would share that need.

The Red Cross got some information for Cambull. There was a possibility that some of his family had survived, but nothing was certain. He needed to go back to find out if that was the case. To do that, he needed the protection of a British passport and British citizenship, so he set about applying. Because he was on the minimum wage, it took him years to save up the fees. I realise there are many in here who cannot imagine that, and I make no criticism of them—I am not being facetious—for never having experienced poverty. I would like nobody to experience it, but I would urge Conservative Members to trust me when I say that it took him years to save up the £1,200, and he could not have saved any harder. Had he been charged what it actually cost the Home Office, he would have got to Sudan a whole lot sooner. I know that nobody in this Chamber would have wanted what happened to him to have happened—I am coming to that—but I want to explain the impact of these extortionate fees in the hope that the Government can be persuaded to reduce them.

It took Cambull a long time, but he did finally get back to Sudan, with his British passport, to see what had become of his family, and he discovered that his mum had, in fact, survived the brutal attacks. She later became ill, and was ill for many years, but she lived longer than anyone expected because she had clung on hoping she would see his face one more time. She died two months before he got there. As I have said, I am not for a second suggesting that anybody here or anybody drafting the legislation would not care about what happened to Cambull, but if he had been able to apply for his citizenship when he became eligible—in other words, if he had been able to afford the cost because it was the actual cost, rather than the cost plus profit—he could have been reunited with his mum before she passed away, and it would have meant so much to both of them. There are so many Cambulls out there and others with different stories.

I want to express my party’s support for new clause 8 in the name of the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy). I will leave her to make what I know will be very good arguments about the even more offensive practice of making profit from children’s applications. One of those arguments is of course that the courts have already ruled against it, but that does not seem to make a difference to this Government these days.

Finally, on awareness raising in relation to new clause 34, several organisations, including Amnesty, have expressed concern about the lack of it. They have asked for assurances that where an individual application is successful, the Government will take positive action to ensure that other potential applicants are made aware of their equal or similar right to register at discretion. This means that where an example is identified, as the Bill says, of

“unfairness,…an act or omission of a public authority, or…exceptional circumstances”,

on which it is right or necessary to exercise the discretion, there should be publicity and awareness raising. We talked about that in Committee, but those organisations want to know that it will happen, and that members of the public who could use the legislation to the same positive effect will have access—easy access—to such information. I would also like an assurance from the Minister that awareness raising will apply equally to British citizenship and British overseas territories citizenship.

On new clause 33, EU citizens have been living in the UK without knowing that, for some, there is an obscure requirement to hold a form of private health insurance. With free access at the point of need to our unique NHS, of which we are all proud, the EU rules on the need for comprehensive sickness insurance were not really written with the UK’s unusual situation in mind. New clause 33 is necessary because, for many, this requirement has only become apparent when applying for citizenship or when applying for British passports for their children born in the UK, and it is now presenting significant hurdles to obtaining citizenship. It could easily be rectified by this new clause, which would allow an applicant the right of free access to the NHS to satisfy the requirement that an individual should hold CSI.

The Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove)—made sympathetic noises on this in Committee, so if he will not accept this new clause, will he at least tighten up the guidance so that nobody has to take the risk of shelling out over £1,200 to apply, only to lose it when the decision maker takes the view on CSI that the Minister seemed to be suggesting he would not want them to take?

We support many of the amendments and new clauses, but I will mention just a couple in particular. Amendment 2 in the name of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) would leave out clause 10 on statelessness. Clause 10 requires the Secretary of State to be satisfied that a child was unable to acquire another nationality before being permitted to register as a British citizen. This creates an additional and unjustified hurdle to stateless children’s registration as British citizens. Rather than ease the process and reform the current system to help children attain citizenship, the Government are intent on putting up more barriers and making it more difficult for children under 18 to be registered. Why? Because they have a handful of anecdotal examples of parents who appear to be using the system, as far as they are concerned, to jump the queue.

In fact, I remember only one such anecdote in Committee. However, I do remember hon. Members on the Committee asking repeatedly for evidence, and the Minister stated repeatedly that evidence would be forthcoming. I remember that the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) asked, I asked several times, the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) asked and my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) asked. When I looked at the record, I counted at least 10 times that we asked for something more than anecdotes, and we were told that the evidence would be forthcoming, but it just has not been, so perhaps the Minister is going to surprise us and give us the evidence now.

The impact of the anecdotes—or the one anecdote I remember being given—was that a child who has done nothing wrong may end up registered as British five years before they otherwise might be. That hardly seems grounds for introducing this restrictive clause. The impact of statelessness on children can be dreadful. It is a terrible thing for a child to feel that they do not belong during their formative years.

I come now to amendment 12 in name of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). We are very much opposed to clause 9, which, as we have heard, grants the Home Secretary the power to strip UK nationals of their citizenship in secret and without advance warning. This is deeply concerning, and it sends completely the wrong message. Since this has become public knowledge, I have had a number of people phoning me about it in an absolute panic.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that this debate has to finish at 4.46 pm. Obviously, the Minister will require some time at the end, so if colleagues speak for about five minutes, we might make it.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I wish to speak to new clause 5, and I thank the more than 50 colleagues, representing every party in this House, who have supported it. I also wish to thank Ministers for engaging positively with me on the substance of the amendment.

My new clause aims to provide greater protection for the brave young people in Hong Kong who are fighting oppression. In particular, it gives them a right to settle in the UK, which is very difficult for them at the moment. Why is this needed? I would illustrate that with one case—that of 20-year-old Tony Chung, who has been handed a prison sentence of more than three and a half years. His crime was that what he said on a small student Facebook group when he was 18 years old was deemed to amount to secession and to be in breach of Hong Kong’s national security law. This illustrates how what was once Asia’s freest and most vibrant city is moving towards totalitarianism. Political persecution is growing by the day. Amnesty International calls it a human rights emergency, and I agree. The Hong Kong Government, at the behest of Beijing, are silencing the free press, gagging civil society and smothering all forms of dissent in the city.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. May I clarify that everybody who wants to speak in this debate is now standing? I call Bell Ribeiro-Addy.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

I wish to speak to new clause 8 about child citizenship fees, which I am grateful has been signed by a number of Members. The children in question are not migrants. I repeat that they are not migrants, because every time this issue is raised, there is some suggestion that there is something slightly illegal behind this, which is disgraceful. On the contrary, the large majority are exactly like me and the Prime Minister, and have every right to British citizenship. This Government, and all successive Governments, accept that, but the issue is that they are being priced out.

We in this country charge British children—children!—up to 10 times more to claim their citizenship rights than their counterparts in Spain, France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. The fee is the most expensive in Europe. If the £35 fee introduced back in 1983 had risen in line with inflation, it would be only £120 today. Instead, we charge £1,012—a fee that has doubled in the past decade, and which the Government have the ability to increase at will. It is a fee that far too many cannot afford, and a fee the level of which neither I nor the Prime Minister had to pay.

Why do I keep mentioning myself and the Prime Minister? It is because the circumstances of our births are no different to those of the children in question today. Indeed, many Members across the House were not born here or were born to migrants, and none of us faced such barriers to claiming our citizenship. No one questions our rights, and our British citizenship gives us the right to sit as Members of this House. I repeatedly mention myself and the Prime Minister because I believe that neither of us should be in a position to make things difficult for those children born after us. I certainly did not come to this House to do that.

Like the Windrush generation, through no fault of their own, and often with no idea of what is to come, these children go on to face real difficulties with everyday life and with things that we take for granted, such as travelling, getting a job, renting a home or going to university without being asked to pay international fees. That is in the country they were born in or have lived in their whole lives. Make that make sense.

Citizens UK, Amnesty International, and the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens, which has led on this campaign, have estimated that between 85,000 and 215,000 children with a legal entitlement to British citizenship have ended up undocumented due to the extortionate registration fee. Imagine how many children have never had the opportunity to reach their full potential because they spent the end of their childhood, and the beginning of their adulthood, fighting to prove that they have rights in their own country, or fighting to prove that they belong in the only place they have ever called home. It is exactly what happened with the Windrush generation.

We must understand that the harm of being denied citizenship rights in the only country you know cannot be overstated. It is not just about societal barriers; it is the psychological impact of being constantly treated like a second-class citizen. Why do I continually compare them to the Windrush generation? That is because, just like the Windrush generation, a piece of legislation or policy that attempted to dissuade migrants and make the environment more hostile for them is impacting on a group of people who have every right to be here. Just like the Windrush generation, this policy disproportionately affects those of black, Asian, and minority ethnic heritage.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Can I once again urge colleagues to stick to the five minutes that we talked about? We are going to have to impose a time limit shortly if we are going to get everybody in.

[Mr Carmichael]

We have a fair old mixter-maxter of different amendments, new clauses and other provisions, and as I try to find a common theme, I find this: policy decisions that we make as a country and that we make in this place sooner or later have domestic policy implications. It does not matter how hard we try to ignore them, as we have with the rights of the Chagos islanders, or how hard we resist the logic of our decisions, as we have in the case of the Hongkongers until recent years—eventually they all require to be dealt with.

I want first to deal briefly with amendment 2, in my name, which would remove clause 10 from the Bill, and with amendment 12, in the name of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), which would remove clause 9. Clause 10 restricts the rights of children who would be born in this country but who would otherwise be stateless. The point about clause 9, which the right hon. Gentleman made very well, is not only that the removal of citizenship is obnoxious but that removal without notice is supremely dangerous. It is perfectly legitimate for Government Back Benchers to point out that the genesis of removal is to be found in the 2002 Act—[Interruption.] I see them nodding. However, I would gently counsel them that finding a way of making a measure introduced by David Blunkett, as Home Secretary, even more illiberal and draconian is not necessarily something about which anybody should be particularly proud.

It is the removal without notice that is particularly objectionable. As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, one of the things we are dealing with here is the basic British sense of decency. We should not be using citizenship as some sort of tool for further punishment; there are plenty of other ways in which people who have done wrong can be punished. However, we do not use fundamental concepts of domestic and international law, such as citizenship, as a tool to do that.

The hon. Members for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) have tabled various provisions on the financial barriers that have been put in place. I was happy to sign the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Streatham, and I very much support those tabled by the Scottish National party.

It seems to me from my casework as a constituency Member that the immigration system is already so complex that it is virtually impenetrable to those who are not in some way legally qualified—and, as far as I can see, to many who are. It should not therefore be administered in such a way that it is open to the Government to make a profit from these cases. There are already sufficient financial barriers in place for those who wish to have, and need to have, citizenship, and we should not be putting a further financial barrier in their way.

There is a whole range of different matters before the House this afternoon, which illustrates to me the fact that this Bill is far from properly scrutinised. We are taking it at a canter this afternoon. There may well be reasons for that in the minds of the Government’s business managers, but, as is the case with trying to wish away the consequences of our foreign policy decisions, they will not carry any water when the Bill gets to the other place, and I fear that, even though the Government will probably get their way in virtually everything today, we will not have heard the last of this Bill yet.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. After the next speaker, I will impose a time limit of four minutes.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

I rise to speak to new clause 7, which is in my name, and has been kindly supported by Members from eight different parties, including immigration and NHS subject experts, for which I am exceedingly grateful. I would like to declare an interest: my partner is an NHS clinician from overseas, but this new clause would not benefit him as he already has his permanent residency status confirmed.

In this country, we typically use the word “hero” far too casually; it is lavished on our celebrities and sports stars, but, while I am sure they are very deserving, this pandemic has shown us who this country’s true heroes are—our NHS workforce. While the entire NHS has played a vital role, our thanks and gratitude should perhaps go in particular to our NHS clinical workers who have come from other countries. They are individuals who have travelled huge distances to be here, often separated from their families, putting their own lives at risk to help save our lives. Regardless of their or our citizenship, the duty and responsibility to care and contribute to the wellbeing of others always comes first with them.

Although I welcome the many steps that the Government have taken already for foreign NHS workers, we need to go further, and I ask the Minister to give this some serious consideration for support this afternoon. With fees for indefinite leave to remain at almost £2,400 and citizenship applications at another £1,330, the total cost of naturalisation is almost £4,000—one of the highest fees of its type in the world, and that is after a minimum of five years, in which there will also have been an initial visa cost, another high fee to be renewed every third anniversary. The process of becoming a citizen for our NHS workers is a costly and challenging one.

Let us take as an example the case of Carrie. It is a real-life case, but I have used a different name. Carrie moved to the UK in 2016, leaving behind a husband and a four-year old child back home in south Asia. It took another year for her husband and daughter to join her because of the costs involved in dependants’ visas. They could only get to be together as a family once more by taking a loan, which she has to pay for over three years.

Three years after she arrived—so with still one more year of loan payments to go—she had to get another loan and compound her cash flow problems because she was due for visa renewal, and so had a load more fees. This year, Carrie is entitled to apply for indefinite leave to remain, with loans still ongoing from previous renewals, and the ILR is more expensive again. What does she do? What options are available to Carrie? Her only choice is to apply for another loan, even bigger than before, to have the right to occupy a space in the UK and call it home. She pays her taxes every month, and has done so for five years—and oh, by the way, she is an intensive care unit nurse. She has spent the past five years, especially the past 18 months, saving lives. She should not be in debt; we should be in her debt.

I feel that it is our duty to create a new route to permanent residency for NHS workers, one that will not leave them in debt, poverty, or in constant worry about funding their next application, and that is by abolishing the costs associated with applying for indefinite leave to remain for NHS clinical workers.

I am proud that our NHS attracts such global talent and recruits from around the world, and, frankly, we would not be able to run it without them. As of last year, more than 160,000 NHS staff stated that they were of a non-British nationality, from more than 200 different countries. Residency should not be about cost; it should be about inclusion, about our communities and about contribution. Arguably, by saving our lives and keeping us safe, our NHS workers have given the biggest contribution of all.

Despite being such valued members of the communities in which they live and work, without ILR and citizenship, individuals cannot be fully part of them. Without ILR, they face barriers to home ownership, difficulty obtaining a mortgage and challenges in the job market and in higher education—there are so many different aspects. Scrapping the fees would not only make ILR more affordable and a viable option for foreign workers in our NHS, but create a more diverse and, crucially, more integrated society. Why is that important? A few weeks ago, I had a message from my partner, who was distressed at having met a new patient that morning who said, “I hope you’re not from Myanmar.” We have a long way still to go with integration and acceptance.

People from other countries who have worked in the NHS during the pandemic and throughout their lives deserve to be able to call the UK home, and actually feel like it is. It is time to abolish the fees for indefinite leave to remain for those who do clinical work in our NHS, so that those who spend time helping and treating us in our time of need can finally feel like they belong and are welcomed here with open arms.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call Seema Malhotra, with a time limit of four minutes.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I will have to implement a three-minute limit; otherwise, we simply will not get people in.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

This Bill is literally inhumane: it dehumanises asylum seekers, puts lives at risk and turns people into criminals for simply attempting to exercise their basic human rights. But the UK Government are not going to let small matters such as fundamental human rights, the rule of law and natural justice get in the way of their hostile environment, and their attempts to exclude practically anyone who is not a tax-dodging billionaire from settling on these shores. We keep hearing, “The asylum system is broken” from those on the Government Benches. Well, how did that happen? The Government have been in power for 10 years, and the environment has only become more hostile. Perhaps a different approach is needed.

It is for that reason that I support the right to work outlined in new clause 45, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). The right to work is a human right. It is in the universal declaration of human rights, and although it might be denied, it cannot be taken away. Lots of us heard that last week from people who had travelled from Glasgow and the Maryhill Integration Network to speak to us about the issue. They want to work, contribute and share their skills.

Instead of people being a cost to the system, we should let them contribute to the system. Instead of them receiving meagre, insulting support payments from taxpayer, we should let them become taxpayers, but that is not something that the Government are interested in. I do not know when a Government Minister last had to sit in a constituency surgery and look at a biometric card that says, “No right to work” or “No recourse to public funds”. It is one of the most heartbreaking things that Members of this House have to do, and it is a complete insult, because being able to work is a human right.

I also support new clause 9 on EU certification, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), because it would correct another historical wrong. I have constituents who have had emails saying, “Congratulations, you have your settled status. By the way, this email is not proof of your settled status.” Quite how they are supposed to prove that status if they do not have the documentation is beyond me, but it is all part of a Home Office agenda that does not want people to make the United Kingdom their home.

The Government want to close borders, shut down routes to citizenship and send a general message that says, “Unless you have lots of money, you’re not really welcome here.” How can the UK ever be the first safe country of arrival? We are surrounded by water. It is simply not possible. That approach would mean that practically everyone turning up here to claim asylum—whether on a ship or small boat or at an airport—would become a criminal. That is rejected by people in Glasgow North and across Scotland. I look forward to the day when we can have an open, generous, accessible pathway to asylum and citizenship, for those who want to take it up, in an independent Scotland.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I will be prioritising people who have tabled amendments.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Before I speak to my new clause 9, I want to associate myself fully with the comments of the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes). In normal times that might surprise people, but I think she put very eloquently the real challenges and issues of offshoring and pushing back.

New clause 9 calls on the Home Office to fill the gap between the digital-by-default proof of status under the EU settlement scheme and the reality of people’s lives. It is typical of the Home Office to have set up a system that does not understand the interactions that people will have to have while proving their status. I thank the Minister for speaking to me about this, and for his letter of today.

Let me give some facts. I represent over 10,000 EU citizens in Hackney South and Shoreditch; my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) represents many thousands more. In my constituency, they are 8.5% of the population. Some 60% of Roma people are unable to access digital proof, and there are other groups who have real problems with digital access. Let me mention just some of the cases in my case load. An EU citizen living in my constituency who visits France weekly for work is interrogated by Border Force every time she arrives back in the UK. Another constituent has parents in their 70s who struggle to understand the complex process of proving their status digitally. Another case involves a freelancer who has had to prove his identity to every new employer, which can be every five or six weeks. The website is sometimes down, and many employers just do not want to engage, so he has lost money.

Another constituent works for a charity working with the Roma; it gave the figure of 60% of Roma people finding it difficult to access digital proof. I thank the3million, which has written to me since I tabled the new clause and explained many of these situations, which I do not have time to go into, but I reiterate the concerns of my constituents.

I say to the Minister, whose job I did just over a decade ago, that we are not so far apart on this. I, too, support methods that take us away from the old Immigration and Nationality Directorate letters, which many of my constituents still come to surgeries with in their wallets, folded up until they are falling apart. They are not a great way of proving one’s status in the UK. People lose passports. There are gaps in the system. We have seen with the covid app how we can make a difference by combining digital and paper.

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I suspect that the Minister will say that the Government need to respond to the consultation that they held earlier this year and that this is not the time to divide the House or to make rapid decisions, which I totally understand, but I hope that Ministers will confirm this evening that they will look at this very closely, with a clear understanding of the support around this House for the moral principle at stake. I hope they will come back to the House when they respond to the consultation so that we can have a full debate on it then. I hope at that stage we will be able to support changes that they make that will enable non-UK citizens to carry on serving in our armed forces.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

It goes without saying that if colleagues can take less than three minutes, we will get more people in.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

No pressure, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak in support of new clauses 10 and 11 and amendment 8 in my name. I do not say this lightly, but there is a deep wickedness at the heart of this Bill, matched only by its stupidity, because of its reliance on a bogus narrative that we are being—whatever the language used—“swamped” by asylum seekers.

Let us have some facts that might help Back Benchers on the Government Benches. First, 2% of the world’s population lives in the United Kingdom, and 0.65% of the world’s refugees are in the United Kingdom. We are not taking our fair share; we are not overwhelmed. We take fewer the half the number of asylum seekers we did 20 years ago. We are 17th in the league table—lower mid-table—of countries in Europe when it comes to taking asylum seekers per head of population. Germany takes three times more and France takes two and a half times more than we do.

We hear from the Minister that our asylum system is broken. Yes, it is, but not because it is deluged by too many asylum seekers, because evidentially that is not true; it is broken because of incompetence on the part of the Home Office. The Government’s argument is the equivalent of blaming patients for NHS waiting lists. It is unacceptable and it is wrong.

The numbers crossing the channel are tragic and awful, and it is obvious why it is the case. It is because we have seen a clampdown, because of covid and security, on people crossing the channel through other unsafe routes, such as the channel tunnel and ferries. As the narrower routes across the channel have been more heavily policed, what have we seen people doing? We have seen people taking more dangerous routes. The evidence shows us that when a route is closed off, people find further, more unsafe routes, so the Government’s policy will see more people dead in the channel. That is clearly what will happen unless they introduce safe routes. [Interruption.] There is a whole lot of rhetoric about safe routes and no action whatever.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I think all this shouting across the Chamber is not doing anybody any favours.

[Tim Farron]

Members on the Government Benches can shout, but they are literally voting for something that will see more people dead in the channel. This Bill is a charter for the people traffickers, and the only answer is safe routes. If we offer them the humanitarian visa as a safe route, we offer them the opportunity to do something that is not just morally right, but would actually solve the problem we are seeking to solve. The reality is that we have here a room full of comfortable people creating a two-tier asylum system that will decide between the deserving and undeserving asylum seeker. That is not just morally wrong but against international law. It is undermining Britain’s international standing and weakening our position on a range of issues while doing something morally shameful and undermining everything it is to be British.

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I rise in support of amendment 150 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), to which I am a signatory. Before I turn to that, I welcome Government amendments 60 to 63 and pay tribute to the Border Force, coastguard, RNLI and search and rescue organisations operating in Dover and Deal and across east Kent who, day after day, month after month and year after year put their lives on the line to save those at peril on the sea.

It is an uncomfortable truth but a truth all the same—and one on which the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) is wrong—that every person put in peril by the people smugglers is already safe on land in France and in many other countries before France. When we remember the 27 people who recently died, as well as the many other lives lost, we must be united in this place to do whatever it takes to stop more lives being lost in the English channel.

The second uncomfortable truth is that, whatever Opposition Members way wish to say, there are safe and legal routes to come to this country. The Bill shows compassion to those most in need of assistance and prioritises them over people who choose unsafe and illegal routes of entry. Clauses 29 to 37 make it clear that refuge will always be available to people persecuted by reason of their religious, political or other beliefs, their race, their ethnicity or their sexuality. It is right to prioritise protection of those most in need of it.

The third uncomfortable truth is that it is possible to have help for those people in greatest need and to have strong borders. It is possible to have help for those who need it and to ensure that our country has strong and secure protection. It is vital that that is supported in the Bill.

Finally, I turn to the refugee convention, which is now 80 years old and out of date. With some 80 million displaced across the globe, we need a new global compact —a COP26 for the migrant crisis—to ensure that we finally work together globally to put an end to the migrant crisis and the small boat crossing routes that are leading to lost lives in the English channel.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am sorry, but I am going to put a two-minute limit on speeches. I know that will not be popular, but I will not get everyone in anyway. I am sure that our next speaker, who will be the last on three minutes, will try to stick to two.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I will do my very best, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak to new clause 44 on safe and legal routes, which is tabled in my name, and new clauses 15 to 17 on a statutory limit on immigration detention, which I tabled with the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller). I pay tribute to him for his work on the issue.

New clause 44 goes to the heart of the Bill’s supposed objectives, which are predicated on stopping irregular arrivals of asylum seekers by encouraging those fleeing war and persecution to access safe and legal routes. However, the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme announced as urgent in August is still not operational, the Syrian scheme has closed, the gateway scheme is not operational and the UK resettlement scheme that opened in February with a commitment to resettle 5,000 people in year one has taken just 770 people. It is a cruel deceit to say that the Bill’s measures encourage the use of safe and legal routes if we have no such meaningful routes.

There is much in the Bill to be concerned about, such as differentiation of refugees in contravention of international law, offshoring of processing claims away from protection, pushing back rubber dinghies and risking lives. Importantly, the Government’s own impact assessment says that the evidence base for such measures is “limited” and that they

“could encourage…cohorts to attempt riskier means of entering the UK.”

However, that is all justified in the name of encouraging safe and legal routes. The Government must face up to their responsibility and deliver those routes.

On new clauses 15 to 17, we are seeking to place a statutory limit on immigration detention and to respond to a missed opportunity in this Bill. I was the vice-chair of a cross-party inquiry over eight months in 2014, with parliamentarians from both sides of the House and all main parties—there were more Government Members than there were Opposition Members—as well as a retired Law Lord, a former chief inspector of prisons and, of course, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire. Our recommendations, which included the limit on detention contained in new clauses 15 to 17, were endorsed by this House in September 2014, so it is disappointing that we are still debating them seven years on.

This is not a particularly controversial proposal. We are unusual in this country in having no limit. During our inquiry, we spoke to a young man who had been trafficked from the Cameroon-Nigeria border. He had been beaten, raped and tortured, and he had made an irregular route to this country on a false passport. He had been detained for three years in contravention of the stated aims of the Home Office that those who have been trafficked should not be detained, that those who have been tortured should not be detained and that detention should be for the shortest possible period. Time and again, we were told that detention was worse than prison, because in prison someone knows when they will get out, but that sense of hopelessness and despair leads to hugely deteriorating mental health.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am sorry, but time is up.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The Pope was recently in Greece, and he criticised European Governments for their lack of humanity to migrants. Normally I agree with the Pope, and it is his job to stand up for the poor and the dispossessed of the world, but—leaving aside the fact that if Greece accepted 100 a day, 1,000 would come tomorrow, and that if it accepted 1,000 the next day, 2,000 would come the day after that—there are countries in the world in such an appalling mess, such as Syria, Iraq, Libya and Somalia, that there is no limit to how many people would want to come here.

The people crossing the channel are not the world’s poorest. They are paying £6,000 or £7,000 to get here. They are not the world’s poorest people; they are economic migrants. If we are weak as a Government, we are actually being inhumane. We are putting people’s lives at risk because more and more people will come to our shores and risk the channel. So to be kind, it may be a cliché, but we have to be tough and we have to get rid of the pull factor. There is no point in going on blaming the French. Of course, we would like them to take people back, but they probably will not.

We have to get rid of the pull factor, and that is why I have put forward new clause 23. The only way we are going to stop this is if we put economic migrants who enter this country illegally in secure accommodation. They know that they can vanish in the community, there is a minuscule chance of their being deported, and they have better chances and better job prospects here than in France and elsewhere, so the Government have to get firm and tough on this. By the way, according to the law of the sea, it would be perfectly legal for them to escort economic migrants back to the shores of France with Border Force vessels. I say to the Government: act now, get tough, or people will die.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I will now call the Minister, but I am sure he is aware that there may be people who might like to intervene.

[Tom Pursglove]

I thank hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and for the way in which most of those contributions were expressed. We are dealing with difficult matters, on which Members have strongly and deeply held convictions.

As I have said, it is vital that we do everything in our power to break the business model of evil criminal gangs and reform the broken asylum system. I am conscious of the time constraints, but I will address a number of amendments that have sparked a lot of today’s debate.

Let me start by addressing amendment 150 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on removal to safe third countries. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) also raised that, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) has been following it. My right hon. and hon. Friends are absolutely right in the sentiments that they have expressed in the amendment. I thank them for their full support on the policy intention, including on third country processing of asylum applications.

There is a recognition that certain existing laws may prevent the Government from achieving our aim to remove those with no legal basis to remain in the country. The legal barriers associated with the removal of failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders are well known. That is why there is work under way across the Government to look at the further legal barriers to removal.

I therefore reassure my right hon. and hon. Friends, and colleagues more widely, that there are no insurmountable domestic legal barriers to transferring eligible individuals overseas under an asylum processing arrangement. Schedule 3 to the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 allows the Secretary of State to remove an individual with a pending asylum claim from the UK to a safe third state if a relevant certificate is issued. The Bill amends section 77 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 to make it easier to remove someone to a safe third country without having to issue a certificate.

Obviously, the Bill complies fully with our international obligations, but the Home Secretary fully agrees with the sentiment that is expressed through amendment 150 about the challenges that frustrate the will of the British people in terms of our ability to remove people with no right to be in the UK. I can therefore confirm that the Government have imminent plans to consult on substantial reform of the Human Rights Act, which will be announced imminently in Parliament.

The Home Secretary also recognises my right hon. and hon. Friends’ concerns about aspects of the ECHR and other international agreements. I can therefore confirm that we are committed to reviewing and resolving these issues with the urgency that the situation warrants.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Mr Percy, were you indicating that you might want to speak earlier—is that right?

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

indicated assent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Okay. The debate has to finish at 4.53 pm and I want to bring the Minister in with adequate time to respond, so I just warn Members that after the SNP spokesperson, I am likely to introduce a time limit of perhaps eight or nine minutes to give us a chance to get everybody in. I call Alyn Smith.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention and I pay tribute to the work she has done over a long period and her humanitarian efforts in Gaza in particular.

I refer to the explanatory notes to this statutory instrument. The final sentence states:

“A full impact assessment has not been produced for this Order as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.”

I am glad to hear that, but I have to say that I find it quite unbelievable. I think it fits into a pattern of behaviour we have seen on the ground. The Minister will be aware of the Israeli Government banning six Palestinian humanitarian NGOs on deeply spurious grounds. I am concerned about anything that shuts down the space for dialogue and civil society in this conflict.

That is our final unease on this matter: the implications. What will be the effect—I would be grateful to the Minister if he could reassure me and I am open to that reassurance today—of this listing on NGOs, big and small, and on civil society? The reality in Gaza especially is that Hamas is a fact of life. You cannot get anything done—you cannot get aid delivered, you cannot have a medical project, you cannot have a civil society dialogue—without Hamas’s active involvement one way or another. I do not say that as a matter of anything to be glad about, but it is the reality. How will this listing impact on the NGOs trying to promote dialogue and civil society, and trying to deliver humanitarian aid? Anything that would limit their activities or curtail their active involvement is surely a retrograde step. I would be grateful to the Minister if he could reassure us on the specific point that nothing in this measure or in the future will limit pragmatic humanitarian engagement within Gaza, and within Israel and Palestine. There is already a chill under way. Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah has never been more important. I would hate to see anything done by this House that would limit the scope for that dialogue and engagement.

We all have a common aim in this process. I think everyone on all sides of the House today has indicated our clear support for justice and peace in the middle east, but surely the way to that peace is dialogue, and anything that limits that dialogue must be properly ventilated and properly scrutinised. From the SNP’s perspective, we will not stand in the way of the proposal, but we believe it needs far better scrutiny than we have been able to do today and will need far more scrutiny in future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We will start with an eight-minute time limit. I may have to take that down, but we will start with that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds, let me say that I hope that even if such important interventions are taken, hon. Members will stick to the eight-minute limit, or else I will not be able to give a fair allocation to everybody.

[Andrew Percy]

As my constituency near-neighbour, Madam Deputy Speaker, you know how much I like the sound of my own voice—I am not alone in this place in that to be fair—but I will try to limit myself. My hon. Friend’s comment is absolutely right. The crux is that this is an antisemitic, despotic terrorist dictatorship, effectively, in Gaza, guilty of war crimes, targeting civilians and hiding behind its own civilians. That is why I entirely support this measure, which the Minister put across in a very measured and thoughtful way, and I appreciate that.

The only sadness, when we get to the conclusion, is that life for Gazans will continue to be pretty horrendous. We must all work and strive towards a resolution that improves the lot of everyone in the region, especially those in Gaza who have to live under this regime and under the other restrictions that are placed on the people of Gaza. We have heard about the summary executions and the treatment of women and homosexuals. I recently read about the experience of a young gay man called Hamza, who described what had happened to him at the hands of Hamas:

“They arrested me, hanged me from the ceiling, beat me up and interrogated me for five days”.

They then made him sign confessions saying that he had had sexual relations with other Gazans who happened to be supporters of Fatah. Sadly, all of that will continue, as will the brutalisation of women, the summary executions and the trumped-up allegations of collaboration with the state of Israel. I welcome this measure today, but I do so with a great degree of sadness that life will continue in such a way for Gazans. I hope that all of us in this place will do everything we can to strive towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict in that part of the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I would like to call the Minister at 4.45 pm, so I ask the two remaining speakers to divide the time between themselves. It is about five minutes each.

EU Settlement Scheme

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

No, it was not devolved; the UK Government implemented that policy at the insistence of the Scottish First Minister who brought it forward.

In 2019, the Prime Minister famously promised to get Brexit done, yet here we are, 18 months after his Government’s election with a majority, still debating the details of these schemes more than five years after the referendum, with many EU nationals still living in limbo. The Government have not got it done, and will never get it done as they promised the public they would. We need to be getting Brexit to work properly. The EU settlement scheme is another example of where many people are falling through the gaps, with the Government unable to contact them and get them into the scheme.

I say again, regretfully, that we will not be able to back the motion. I hope that the Government will listen to charities or to the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), and even now extend the deadline for the thousands of EU citizens who have failed to submit their applications on time through no fault of their own. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us how many EU citizens living in the UK the Home Office believes have not managed to apply on time, and what the Department is doing about finding and contacting them and getting them to apply on time. It is particularly important for the Home Office to contact proactively those citizens who are either vulnerable or hard to reach as a result of issues such as a lack of internet access, or who do not think the scheme applies to them because they have been here for so long. I hope the Minister can reassure us that the applications of the nearly half a million people who submitted them before 30 June will be concluded as quickly as possible.

What is missing from these debates is the fact that those affected are our neighbours, our friends, our partners, our colleagues and our fellow citizens. They are human beings, not numbers on a Home Office screen. Those are the people who have chosen to make this country—our home—their home. Together, we make this country our home. As we chart the next phase of our country’s history, we would do well to remember that we are talking about human beings and we need to make sure that the scheme works for them all.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I remind the House that if colleagues’ speeches are between four and five minutes, we should be able to get everybody in.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I shall take that guidance to heart, Madam Deputy Speaker. With your leave, before I wade in, I wish to pay tribute to my parliamentary team, because it is with great sadness that I report to the House that my constituency office was attacked this morning. I pay tribute to the police for dealing with it incredibly quickly. Luckily, those involved did not gain entry, but they did break 16 panes of glass and, of course, scared the parliamentary team. Across the House, our teams work day in, day out without, necessarily, the protection that this House affords us now. I put on the record my thanks to my team and the police for dealing with the situation so quickly. However, life goes on, and I will now contribute to this important debate.

Although I very much welcome the tone of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) and many of the observations that he made in opening, we need to be incredibly careful about getting our language and tone right to remind all EU citizens who have been living, contributing, working and loving in this country that they are very welcome to stay. We need to reflect on the scale of the achievement of getting 6 million-plus applications. When the Minister sums up, I look forward to him giving us the stats to date, which he will have to hand easier than I. At my last check, 5.4 million had been settled. That is a huge achievement, and it is against the background of the last five years, with huge constitutional arguments and with political parties in this place telling people that they could stop Brexit and causing confusion on a huge scale about what the relationship would look like next.

As a result of what the Government have put in place, and what I ensure in my constituency, people in Wales and the whole of the United Kingdom feel welcome and understand the importance of applying. I very much welcome the tone from the Minister in responding to the debate, and the proportionality that he is now applying to anyone who gets their application in late. It seemed to me that what he outlined in opening was pretty much what the SNP is calling for: proportionality. Clearly, we needed a date to work to, and we needed to get the message out to apply, but I very much welcome the proportional response to those who may have got their application in late.

I want it to go on the record that in a previous life I worked very much on the detail of the withdrawal agreement and the generous package that the UK Government put in place. This is the most generous settlement scheme in the whole of the EU—hon. Members should look at the withdrawal agreement. I am happy to be intervened on by anyone on the Opposition Benches if they can tell me of a country in the European Union that has a more generous settlement scheme package for UK citizens than we have for EU citizens. We have gone above and beyond to ensure that people feel welcome, and we need to ensure that the language and tone are right in this Chamber to reinforce that message.

I am conscious of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I do not want to make you impose a limit, but I will comment on the proposed introduction of a border. It disappoints me. I join the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), in looking forward to the day when a motion from the SNP does not try to cause a border for our Celtic cousins. Never mind England and Scotland; you are trying to put a border between Wales and Scotland. We do not want that. We do not want you to leave the Union. You have made some fair points, but adding that last sentence with a demand for a border between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom shows your hand, I am afraid. It shows that this debate is more about political point scoring than creating the welcome that you are trying to.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just a reminder to speak through the Chair, rather than directly to other Members. There is a very good reason why that is how we do things here.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP) [V]]

This is a debate that I wish we did not need to have, not just because I find it abhorrent that people who made their home here are now faced with proving their right to stay, but because the UK Government have, true to form, made an absolute moger of the process—removing the safety barriers so that people now risk falling off the cliff edge into the shark-infested waters of the hostile environment.

I have had constituents getting in touch about the scheme for some time now, anxious about what it might mean for them. Delays in the scheme, which have been highlighted recently, are nothing new in the experience of my constituents in Glasgow Central. In October 2019, a constituent made his application to the EU settlement scheme and found out that he had been granted pre-settled status only in June 2020. Another applied in June 2019 and although his wife was granted status almost immediately, he was waiting until February 2021, having been moved into the “complicated” pile. A further constituent applied in December 2020 and was granted status only in June this year. All these delays cause considerable stress to individuals. I appreciate that there are checks, processes and wheels turning slowly in the background, but the UK Government knew this was coming. They were warned on multiple occasions by a wheen of organisations and experts that layering this on top of an already struggling immigration system would cause problems, yet it feels from the experience of my constituents that nothing was done.

There are also uncertainties and grey areas. People who have never had to question their right to live here are now having to do so. A constituent and friend of mine, Toni Guigliano, has lived most of his life in Scotland. He considers himself a dual national—an Italian Scot—but his ID for work purposes was an Italian passport, so he has had to apply for settled status to ensure he is able to continue to live his life here. He is certain there will be many others like him who do not believe they need to apply. To make matters worse, the EU settlement scheme helpline told him he did not absolutely need to apply, but that was contradicted by an email I received from UK Visas and Immigration today, which would suggest that he does, as his Italian passport is not proof of a right to work. What an absolute shambles!

The lack of a physical document has been raised by many constituents as a deficiency in the scheme. Relying on having a mobile phone with battery sufficiently charged to allow someone to get through the border as they come back from their holidays is far from ideal for most people. For the digitally excluded, this is also a real problem. For those required to prove eligibility to their employer or a whole host of Government agencies, the digital systems appear not yet to be in place or working properly, as constituents have already found and as my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) highlighted. In a response to me from the Minister for Future Borders and Immigration, it was evident that the “view and prove” service is not yet working on a cross-Government basis. In the letter, he stated that, for individuals accessing services provided by Departments and other public authorities,

“e.g. benefits and healthcare, the Home Office will increasingly make the relevant information about an individual’s status available automatically through system to system checks, at the point at which they seek to access the public services.”

Although I understand this may be working to an extent in the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and NHS England, that is not by any matter or means the full spectrum of services that people interact with. A system should be in place right now, not at some vague time in the future. It is yet another reason to remove or extend the deadline if the UK Government have not even finished their own homework on this issue.

There are further consequences for EU nationals as a result of the Tories’ Brexit shambles. Another constituent who has lived in Scotland since May 2016 has been allocated pre-settled status and has applied for settled status. He has always worked, but he lost his job in hospitality in early 2020 and went to stay with family in Italy, unfortunately getting stuck there during the lockdown. His universal credit claim was refused as he was not in the UK, and he could not apply for jobs, not knowing when he would be able to return to his home in Glasgow. As a result, he is now struggling to get by, destitute until he gets an answer, because he has been unable to claim his benefits with pre-settled status. He told me:

“For me this situation is really distressing. I feel really discriminated and humiliated from this government. They are killing my hopes and my dreams.”

I have encountered other cases where the DWP has raised questions over EU nationals’ eligibility and unfairly denied benefits on the basis of the habitual residency test. This should not be the future EU nationals face; the vast majority work and contribute but, as we all know, anyone can require to access support because of the loss of a job or illness. They should not face barriers in their path, in the way that no recourse to public funds already causes destitution and serious harm to so many.

Another compelling reason to extend the deadline is the bureaucratic backlog caused by coronavirus. A constituent who came to the UK in July 2020 has been completely stuck due to agencies being closed—understandably—because of covid-19. She was not able to get a national insurance number, as the jobcentres were closed, or a job, because so many places were not hiring. She was also not able to register with a GP, set up a bank account or obtain a UK driving licence. Now she faces having her claim refused because she cannot absolutely prove she was in the UK before December 2020. So I ask how the Minister expects people to prove their rights when the very agencies we would all expect to assist have not been available to people.

Similarly, another constituent seeking to register his children under the EU settlement scheme found it more difficult, as their passports had expired and renewals were more difficult due to covid. Although I appreciate that passports were not always required to register, I am sure that many others would have found themselves in similar circumstances, panicking as the deadline approached. I hope that this will be taken into account as a “reasonable excuse”, but if there had not been a deadline, that would have removed a great deal of anxiety from the situation.

The future of work for EU nationals is undoubtedly now more complex. The situation has made it more difficult to travel and work, and many may now choose to move elsewhere as a result. We have all benefited from the talent and expertise of EU nationals and the all-round contribution they have made to our communities, but what the UK Government have sought to do through Brexit and through these rules is to make life harder for our friends and neighbours. As the MP with the highest immigration case load in Scotland, I can tell Members that life is already pretty hard for many people and that the UK Government’s utterly despicable Nationality and Borders Bill seeks to make the situation even worse.

Scotland did not vote for this. We voted to remain in the EU. We see the benefits of migration, as a nation who have sent our own out around the world, and we stand by those who have done us the honour of choosing Scotland as their home. I look forward to the day soon when we are able not only to show people our Scottish hospitality, but to have the legislation to back that up.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just another reminder that if we think of each other, everyone can get in, but I did say between four and five minutes.