Draft British Nationality Act 1981 (Immigration Rules Appendix EU) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 General Committees

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hollobone. The Opposition support the draft regulations. We believe that a child born in the UK to parents who have the right to settled status should be able to access citizenship where that status had not been granted when the child was born. To not allow children to access citizenship in such circumstances would clearly be unfair and go against legal precedent.

We believe that the UK’s proud tradition of inclusivity necessitates these draft regulations. However, we have several questions for the Minister about some points he made. We are concerned that children falling into the affected categories will have to register to access their citizenship. Anyone registering their British citizenship faces an exorbitant fee, which we have repeatedly challenged. The Government will know that the fee was recently declared unlawful. Therefore, we want to clarify that no such fees will be a consequence of the draft regulations. The Minister mentioned that a child will automatically acquire citizenship. Will he confirm that there will be no fee for that citizenship or subsequent registration?

We are concerned that, although the child’s British citizenship is not backdated to their birth, there is nevertheless a retrospective aspect of disapplying their parent’s lack of lawful status for the period between 1 July and the eventual grant of status. Should a person be rendered liable for NHS treatment and incur a bill before submitting a late application, they would continue to be liable for that treatment, regardless of gaining a grant of status. As the Minister knows, that could be thousands of pounds. We need assurances that the individuals affected by the legal changes will not be subject to retrospective NHS bills that might ensue if that status has not been acquired before that period.

The Government need to produce more information about how the draft regulations will operate. We need to know how EU citizens who become settled on or after 1 July 2021 and their children will be alerted to the right to citizenship. There needs to be provision for the public services that the parents encounter to be made aware of, and able to advise on, a child’s eligibility to citizenship. I know that the Minister said that that is automatic, but some public sector organisations might not be aware of that, which could cause problems in the future.

We are also concerned about other aspects of this change in the law, given the numbers of people involved in ongoing and existing backlogs of settled status cases. We understand that there is a very high number of backlogged cases. That is worrying given the new numbers of cases related to the changes outlined in the draft regulations, which will need to be communicated and actioned. It is vital that the Government have initiatives in place to deal with that. What will those be? It is also vital that the Home Office keeps accurate records of the time lag between applications made before the deadline and the date of the status decision. We would like assurances on that and on whether the Home Office will record the reasons for delays in each application.

We seek clarity about the transparency of records for those affected by the legal changes. One of the many lessons of the Windrush scandal is that safeguards must be in place for all affected children and their parents, carers or corporate parents to have easy access to records. We must not see a repeat of the heartbreak caused in the Windrush scandal by the lack of transparency in record keeping or the lack of reliability.

In summing up, I hope that the Minister will commit to ensuring that the changes to the law will not result in any problems for children or parents seeking records. Will the Department provide access to records for the child to whom section 10A applies? What other steps will the Department take to ensure that the child is able to confirm their British citizenship, whether during childhood or adulthood? I have already mentioned the issue of the fees not applying—the grant is automatic. Will the Minister provide assurances that there will be adequate provision of information to all those affected by the changes, now and in the years to come, when an affected child may need to confirm their British citizenship? We must ensure that, with all the changes, there is no possibility of repeating the mistakes of the Windrush scandal. Therefore, we seek maximum transparency and accessibility for those affected by the change. However, we will not oppose the draft SI.