EU Settlement Scheme: Looked-after Children and Care Leavers

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Westminster Hall

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I, too, congratulate the Minister on her post and look forward to working constructively with her. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) for securing this important debate and bringing this serious issue to the fore. I also thank The Children’s Society, the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium and the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit for their comprehensive briefings.

As we head ever closer to a disastrous no-deal Brexit, the rights of the 3.8 million EU nationals living in the UK are still in jeopardy. By a conservative estimate, 5,000 EU children live in care in the UK and a further 4,000 care leavers will be affected by the EU settlement scheme. Across the UK, our already stretched local authorities are now responsible for safeguarding the rights of thousands of European looked-after children and care leavers.

If that already vulnerable group of children does not secure their rights after Brexit, we could easily double the number of undocumented children living in the UK, which is a situation that none of us want to see, as I am sure the Minister agrees. Those undocumented children and young people would then be subjected to all the Government’s hostile environment policies: they will be unable to work, drive or open a bank account, and they will effectively be barred from college, university and secondary healthcare.

That is why Labour supports a declaratory scheme, as opposed to the Government’s constitutive scheme. A declaratory scheme would ensure that all EU citizens living in the UK automatically retained their rights after Brexit. I had many discussions with the previous Minister about the issue and I hope that the new ministerial team will look again at the proposal. Without reforming the system entirely, it is imperative that the Government look again at the problems faced by children in care and care leavers in applying for settled status.

I want to outline my three most pressing concerns about children in local authority care and care leavers who need to secure settled status. A number of other Members have also touched on these points.

First, many looked-after children and care leavers lack the documentation necessary to complete their application under the settlement scheme. Many children in care will not have the identity documents that the Home Office requires for settled status. If a child is born in the UK, they will more than likely not have a passport or identity card to prove their nationality. It is estimated that more than half a million children fall into this category.

As the largest-scale registration programme the Home Office has ever embarked on, the settlement scheme has brought into stark relief how little we know about the immigration status of the children in the care of the state. Does the Minister agree that we must ensure that these children do not fall through the gaps just because they are unable to prove their nationality?

My second concern is the lack of information available to local authorities. The Government have spent the last 10 years slashing local authority budgets and now they expect those cash-strapped councils to take responsibility for registering the thousands of EU national children in their care. Earlier in the year, following the roll-out of the settlement scheme, the Government issued guidance to all local authorities on how they should be supporting children in their care and care leavers, which stated that there is no general duty on local authorities to ensure that immigration status is secured for looked-after children. Does the Minister not consider securing a looked-after child’s immigration status to be a fundamental part of the state’s corporate parenting responsibilities?

Thirdly, I am concerned about the legal advice being offered to looked-after children. There is potential for children with the right to apply for British citizenship being advised to pursue settled status in the rush to ensure they are protected. Does the Minister agree that only those with sufficient expertise should be giving immigration advice to children in care and care leavers?

All looked-after children have the right to seek legal aid in applying for their settled status. What steps is the Minister taking to make local authorities aware of their right to apply for exceptional immigration case funding for children in their care? Will the Minister also guarantee parliamentary time in what remains of this Session for the amendment to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 that would cement that right in legislation? Labour is committed to providing early legal advice for all immigration cases. Legal aid is not just a force for good, but could also save the Treasury millions in the long run.

As we all know, there are a multitude of problems at every stage in the immigration process for children in care, and for just about all other vulnerable groups in our society. That includes the cost of citizenship applications, the time it takes to apply and the hostile environment. There are many issues I have not had time to touch on today. I hope the Minister will answer the questions we have raised. It is vital that no vulnerable child or young person is allowed to fall through the gaps of the settled status scheme.