European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting
Monday 20th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, there seems to be a slight pantomime element to this. Many from the3million say, “We need physical proof”; the Government simply reply, “No you don’t”, and so it goes round and round. We are going to have to rebuild relationships with many of these people, who have been bruised by the lack of clarity, by being referred to as “bargaining chips” and by other unkindnesses. My point is simply this: the Government can have their cake and eat it. This is not two parallel systems. You can provide physical evidence which will bear that identity number, which anybody who needs to can be obligated to look up. They are not two systems. I support this amendment.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, I have a reservation about this amendment, based on a possible unintended consequence of physical proof of identity. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, mentioned identity cards. It is not impossible that, if there was physical identity documentation in existence, we would get to a situation, whether intended or not, where people would be asked to produce proof in this form. An identity card required of EU citizens but not of UK citizens would come in by the backdoor. That would be a worrying development. It might be a remote possibility, but it is one we should take into account.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I flew down from Edinburgh today. I was asked to prove my identity before I was allowed on to the aeroplane. It is a common request. I may be missing something here, but, if I want to be able to drive a motor vehicle in this country, I make an application; it is recorded somewhere, I have no doubt, that I have been granted a licence, and I am given a document. It is perhaps a modern form of document, but it makes it clear any time I am stopped by a policeman that I have a legitimate licence. What is wrong with applying that system to the circumstances we are describing here?

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Ridley]

I apologise for interrupting. On that very point, I was not reassured by what the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, said. It seems to me that if landlords or other authorities are already beginning to ask for proof of settled status, this would get worse if there were known to be a system where they could produce a card. It would then de facto become a card that they had to produce.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Ridley. His point about ID card creep is also part of this point. It is exactly what happened to the Windrush generation. The Government are adamant that we must avoid a situation in which, years down the line, EU citizens who have built their lives here find themselves struggling to prove their rights and entitlements in the UK.

The approach suggested in the amendment is also unnecessary. Managing the end of free movement in the UK and providing certainty for resident EU citizens during that transition has been an absolute priority. We firmly believe that the current, constitutive approach under the EU settlement scheme is the right one. According to the latest internal figures, more than 2.8 million applications have been received and 2.5 million grants of status have already been made. The Home Office, as I said the other day, is processing up to 20,000 applications a day.

We are working with communities up and down the country to raise awareness of the scheme and keep up this momentum. It already allows EU citizens who would be protected by the agreements and other people the Government have chosen to protect, such as many non-working spouses and primary carers not covered by the agreements, to obtain a UK immigration status, enabling them to remain here permanently after the end of the implementation period. This status will mean that their rights and entitlements under the agreements are guaranteed. However, the new clause would interrupt the flow of a system that is well under way, already working well and achieving precisely what it was designed and implemented to do: providing certainty to those who have made their lives here.

EU citizens resident in the UK before the end of the implementation period will have different, enhanced rights compared with those who arrive afterwards. It is therefore essential that these citizens have the evidence they need to demonstrate their rights in the UK. This is also why we are seeing many other EU member states planning to take exactly the same approach and establish a constitutive system for UK nationals living there.

The EU settlement scheme means that those who have built their lives here will not find themselves struggling to evidence their rights in the UK, or have to carry around multiple bits of paper to evidence their previous UK residence. We are legally required to issue all successful applicants under the EU settlement scheme with a written notification of their UK immigration status, and all successful applicants are given a letter confirming their status. The status can be viewed online and shared securely with others, but as noble Lords have said it is not proof but confirmation.

Access to the online status service is via secure two-factor authentication using the document, such as a passport or national ID card, which the individual used to prove their identity and their date of birth. The user is then required to input a one-time use code, sent to their mobile number or email address. This ensures that no one else can access the individual’s information without their permission. Once in the service, users can view their information and update their details, and can choose to share their status information with third parties. This might be with employers, to prove their right to work, or with other service providers, to prove their right to access public services, benefits or the NHS.

When an individual chooses to share their information, they share only the content that is specific and relevant to the checks in question, as I went through the other day. This will include their name, their image and any information that is relevant to that particular purpose. This supports data minimisation, ensuring that only the information required is made available, which is not possible with a single physical document.

All our digital services are designed and developed to be robust and reliable, with extensive internal and user testing before launch to ensure that they perform as expected. We will monitor services to ensure that any issues are identified and acted upon. Mechanisms are already in place for users to report any technical issues with the service. We continue to refine and improve these processes, and all data will be treated in compliance with data protection law.

We do not want to go back to issuing physical documents, which, as we know, can be lost, stolen or tampered with. Our vision for the future is a digital status and service for all migrants. The continuation of a declaratory system would force employers, banks and other service providers to wade through various documents to establish for themselves whether the person is indeed protected by the agreements. Such an approach would be burdensome, for the citizens and others, and for the very systems we have committed to protect.

I will pick up a number of questions which noble Lords asked. Several noble Lords talked about airports. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, gave the example of a friend who was questioned at the airport, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked about the border, too. What happens at the border is proof of identity to cross the border, as opposed to proof of status to be in the UK.

The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, talked about hiring a car abroad. In doing so, he inadvertently proved the point that, with the dispensing of the paper part of the licence, all one needs when abroad is a code to prove that you can hire a car. You do not need the physical document, you need only the code—as I learned to my peril when I did not realise that that was what you had to do.

Extinction Rebellion

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

It is important to recognise that, in the US, gas has been a bridge in moving towards decarbonisation. The key challenge for this globe right now will be addressed where serious emissions take place. Extension Rebellion has drawn attention to the issue but in a way that is not always helpful. It needs to be very careful to make sure that it brings alongside the people, because it is the people who will have to do the heavy lifting on this matter.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with the recent report from Policy Exchange, co-authored by Richard Walton, former head of Counter Terrorism Command at the Metropolitan Police? It said that:

“Extinction Rebellion is an extremist organisation whose methods need to be confronted and challenged rather than supported and condoned”.


Will he condemn, along with responsible scientists, Extinction Rebellion’s falsehoods and exaggeration, which have unnecessarily frightened young people, and will he stand with the good people of Canning Town in their determination to get to work rather than indulge campaigns for permanent austerity?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

As I said a moment ago, China is responsible for one-third of global emissions. I think that if Confucius were to comment on this he would say, “To address climate change, do not glue yourself to an electric train”. I do not believe the work of Extinction Rebellion in this regard has done credit to it or to the cause of emissions reduction, and I stand beside those at Canning Town who have been frustrated when trying to use public transport.