European Union Settlement Scheme

Angela Crawley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements— welcome to those on the screen. I also remind Members participating virtually that they must leave their camera on for the duration of the debate, and that they will be visible at all times, both to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should either throw something at the screen or email the Westminster Hall Clerks at [e-mail]. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room. I also remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP) [V]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the EU Settlement Scheme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. With the 30 June deadline for applications for the EU settlement scheme fast approaching, I am pleased to have the opportunity to open this debate. I also wish to give my colleagues time to speak, and therefore I will use only some of my time today, not only to remind EU nationals living in the UK to apply for settled status if they have not already done so, but to highlight to the Minister that this scheme is already causing disruption in people’s lives and that this may be the last chance to prevent another Windrush scandal.

The EU settlement scheme was launched in March 2019 as part of the withdrawal agreement. The scheme was trailed by the Department for Exiting the European Union as the method for EU nationals to secure their rights post-Brexit, and to continue to live their lives broadly as they did under freedom of movement. The reality is that being forced to register for rights in the country they call home has caused a great deal of upset and anxiety among many of our European friends, neighbours and constituents. People have been left feeling unwanted, unwelcome, humiliated and angry due to this Government’s heavy-handed approach. For many, it has broken their sense of belonging and eroded their trust in this Government; for others, it has been the final straw, and they have left the UK altogether. This is a sorry state of affairs, considering the benefits that EU nationals bring to the UK: to our economy, our workforce, the NHS, and—most importantly—our culture.

As of the start of this month, there have been 5.6 million applications to the EU settlement scheme. The majority of those applicants, around 4.9 million, have been granted settled or pre-settled status. Settled status guarantees the right to live, work, and remain indefinitely, free of immigration controls, and is available to those who have lived in the UK for more than five years. Pre-settled status offers less definite security, giving permission for five years that will expire, with the expectation that the person will later apply for settled status. The onus for converting pre-settled status to settled status falls on the applicant. There is the potential for people to forget to reapply or to miss that reminder, and in this instance, someone could easily find themselves working illegally and have to go without income while applying to update their status. Will the Minister give consideration to a system of automatic conversion to settled status for those who are pre-settled?

Right now, there is a backlog of more than 300,000 applications still waiting to be cleared by the Home Office. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has raised concerns that if these applications are still live after the deadline, that will create a legal ambiguity for applicants. Will they be in the country unlawfully while they are waiting on this decision? Can the Minister offer clear guidance on the rights of the tens of thousands of people waiting for a decision, and give his assurances that those will not be affected after the deadline? Perhaps the Minister could allow applicants to avoid this pitfall altogether by taking the advice of the Scottish Government’s Europe Minister, Jenny Gilruth, to extend the deadline.

As of midnight on 30 June, those who have not applied to the scheme will feel the full effect of this Government’s hostile immigration system. That means that people who have lived and worked in the UK legally for years will be criminalised and potentially face a dramatic change in their rights. They will be unable to work or rent; they will be unable to receive NHS treatment free at the point of need; they will be unable to receive welfare benefits or access to other public services, such as housing; and they will be liable to criminal prosecution, detention and removal from the UK.

The Home Office has confirmed that it is aware of those people who are still due to apply to the scheme and will miss the deadline. According to the Home Office guidance, those groups include children, people with care or support needs, victims of domestic abuse, people in poverty, homeless people and rough sleepers, and, in particular, minority groups such as the Roma community. Could the Minister outline in his answers what steps are being taken to support those vulnerable people who his Department already knows will miss the deadline?

The campaign organisation the3million, which has been at the forefront of being a voice for so many people, has reported that even though the application process is still open, EU nationals are already being asked to prove their settled status in a wide range of contexts, contrary to Government guidance. Those asking them to do so include landlords, estate agents, housing agencies, employers, banks, councils, GPs, hospitals, schools, international airports, prior to their boarding a flight, and UK border staff. Those are just some of the many examples. I mention this because it is clear that the people asking for proof of status are unlikely to be specialists in the immigration field and may be unfamiliar with the settled scheme terminology, creating situations ripe for discrimination. As the Minister will be aware, the Court of Appeal ruled in December that those with pre-settled status must be treated on an equal basis with all other claimants when applying for welfare benefits, so will the Minister put it on the record that that must be the case in relation to employers, landlords and all services?

Successful applicants are not given physical proof of their status. Instead, every time someone needs to prove their status, they will have to go through a complex process, involving at least 14 steps, in order to show an online document. The Government’s implementation of covid certification allows people to show their status simply on their phone or to download and print a PDF document. Alternatively, if someone is not digitally literate, they can request a printed version. Allowing a similar physical status document would make life so much easier for those granted settled or pre-settled status. Can the Minister offer a convincing reason why that has not been built into the EU settlement scheme, and will he consider building physical documentation into the system going forward?

The Minister will be aware of the correspondence on behalf of my constituent Jenny Condie. According to her settled status documentation, she is called by her maiden name, Serraf. This is the case for many married European women whose passports list both their married and their maiden names. I understand that it is due to the Home Office taking details from the machine-readable zone of the passport. However, it may raise suspicions when the status documentation does not match any other form of identification. When I asked the Home Office how many women were issued with documentation in their maiden name, the information was not available. I am concerned that women will discover that their documentation is misleading only when they face awkward questions, delays or discrimination when trying to prove their status.

Initially, Jenny was advised by the Home Office to approach the French authorities to have her passport amended, so I am grateful to the Minister for his letter outlining that a process for changing maiden names to married names has been created at the Home Office since I first contacted him about this case. However, Jenny has been unable to have the change carried out. The Home Office requires her to send her physical passport, but she is reluctant to do so, because she is worried that she may need to travel to France if there is an emergency. Should the document get lost in the post, she would need to travel to London for a passport replacement. Those concerns will be replicated for most EU nationals in the same position. When making the application, Jenny only had to send a picture of the document. Will the Minister review the process and either make the change to married names automatic or streamline the process by accepting photographed documents?

In 2016, as part of the Vote Leave campaign, the current Prime Minister and the current Home Secretary issued a commitment that there would be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK; those EU citizens would automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and would be treated no less favourably than they were at present. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary respectively not only have failed to uphold that commitment on all counts, but have caused confusion, upset, anxiety and fear, and allowed the dignity of EU citizens to be trampled, through the faulty EU settlement scheme. It was evident when the scheme opened in 2019 that people would fall through the cracks; and now, two weeks before the deadline, the reality could not be clearer.

The Minister today has the opportunity to extend the deadline and avoid a Windrush-style scandal. I wish to allow time for parliamentary colleagues to speak. Therefore I will conclude here: I urge him to take this consideration very seriously.