Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am president of the Spinal Injuries Association and we are being contacted by an increasing number of members, who include some of the most vulnerable people in society today, desperately worried about the future shortage of skilled carers as a result of the planned immigration system. A very real staffing crisis is looming, with serious implications for the health and safety of a significant number of these vulnerable people.

Carers are not used just in hospitals and care homes. Many disabled people live in their own homes and have live-in carers or carers who visit them every day. These carers include many overseas nationals, and they are absolutely essential in managing disabled people’s health needs and enabling them to lead active, productive and fulfilled lives. They are key workers. Carers are a vital and integral part of the healthcare system.

Low paid does not mean low skilled. The vast majority of social care roles do not meet the planned immigration system’s salary threshold of £25,600. Restricting the numbers of overseas nationals who can work in this sector will put lives at risk, especially as we have an ageing population. We need people with a work ethos who want to help and look after people and enjoy and take satisfaction in doing this.

There is a danger that people who cannot get work of their choice are pushed into doing care work, with such horrifying results as happened at Whorlton Hall near Barnard Castle, Thors Park in Essex and Winterbourne View near Bristol, where patients were abused and bullied. This cruelty was exposed by “Panorama”. We must surely try to prevent this sort of thing happening again. I hope the Government will listen before it is too late.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Brinton has her name to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, which we support. My noble friend is indisposed at present, but I know that she will be here in spirit. I start by saying to the Minister that I will try not to moan. I generally try not to moan. It is reasonable for her to refer a Member of the House to GOV.UK; my point was that most of the public would be bemused by the reference. I think I can see on my screen that she is nodding.

There was enthusiasm for tabling amendments quickly after Second Reading, especially on what were particularly topical issues. A health and social care visa was one such. It remains topical, as does the whole operation of the social care sector, even though it is not in the headlines quite so much. I have spoken about immigration arrangements being in the rules. The scheme set out in our Amendment 47 may not be ideal—I confess I do not think it is—but it is about pinning down the arrangements into primary legislation to make them not too easy to amend.

My noble friend Lady Brinton and I also have our names to Amendment 57, on a social care visa. Many of your Lordships will have direct experience of the work of those in social care and share what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has talked of—the importance of proper payment reflecting the level of skill, which is very significant. As it happens, I cannot praise too much someone who recently cared for a close relative. She came from Romania.

The essential core skills are not ones that can be trained into anyone; there are the practical, technical aspects of care, but you cannot train someone to care as part of their personality. They either have it or they do not. That is why so many carers, little supported, are people who look after their spouses, children or parents at home. I mention this because, last time I mentioned care at home, the Minister thought I meant domiciliary care. That is part of the subject matter of the amendment, but I depart from the scope of the Bill for a moment to recognise the dedication and sheer hard work that family members undertake, which is inadequately recognised. Other noble Lords in the debate may know how much, in pounds and pence, that work saves the state.

The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, will explain the importance of her proposal in Amendment 66. I simply say that my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester added her name to that amendment, and she is very sorry that she cannot take part in today’s proceedings.

Also in the group is Amendment 82 of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which I thought was interesting. Some of us leap in; calmer heads propose an analysis of the issue. I suspect that will not preclude some pithy points in support of progressing with analysis.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 66 would provide for the creation of a fast-track health and social care visa for EEA and Swiss nationals who provide personal care for severely disabled people, after the end of free movement. The visa would be limited to EEA and Swiss nationals who, immediately prior to the commencement of Clause 1 and Schedule 1, had the right of free movement into the UK.

Subsection (1) of my proposed new clause says:

“The Secretary of State must provide by regulations made by statutory instrument for the introduction of a fast-track health and social care visa for a relevant person who provides personal care for severely disabled people in the United Kingdom.”


Subsection (2) defines “fast-track” and “relevant person”:

“In this section, ‘fast-track’ means processed by UK Visas and Immigration within three weeks from the day on which the applicant provides their biometric information, and ‘relevant person’ means an EEA or Swiss national who immediately prior to the commencement of section 1 and Schedule 1 had the right of free movement into the United Kingdom.”


The proposed new clause would provide for the introduction of a fast-track health and social care visa for a person who provides personal care for severely disabled people. The visa would be limited to EEA or Swiss nationals who, immediately prior to the commencement of Clause 1 and Schedule 1, had the right of free movement into the UK. This is a probing amendment to see what consideration the Government have given to extending their new health and social care visa to persons who provide personal care for severely disabled people in the United Kingdom.

In July, the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced that a

“new Health and Care Visa will be launched this Summer, creating a new fast-track visa route for eligible health and care professionals and delivering on a key manifesto commitment.”

However, the Government have been criticised for excluding care workers from being able to apply for visas designed to fast-track those coming to the UK to work in the health and care sector.

On 13 July, the Home Office released details of the UK points-based immigration system, which will come into effect from 1 January 2021. Under the new system, the health and care visa will allow people working in eligible occupations, who speak English and have a job offer, to come to the UK. Under this visa route, workers and their families will gain fast-track entry to the UK, with reduced application fees and dedicated support, the Government said. Those who are eligible to apply and their dependants will also be exempt from paying the immigration health surcharge—a move that has been welcomed by doctors. But applicants must meet a salary threshold of £25,600, which is €28,200 or $32,000, to be eligible to apply for the visa, unless they are entering a shortage occupation, such as nursing and medicine. The NHS workers’ union, GMB, said that this threshold would mean that many NHS cleaners, porters and support staff will not qualify for the visa.

The Government have faced a backlash because social care workers are not eligible to apply for the visa, although the Migration Advisory Committee, on whose advice much of the new system is based, recognised the workforce shortage faced by social care in its most recent report and did not recommend that care workers be added to the list of shortage occupations. I cannot understand this. Perhaps the Government can tell us why. Instead, the committee said that it hoped the Government’s forthcoming Green Paper on social care would provide more clarity on the future of the sector in the UK and contain concrete proposals to improve terms and conditions for care workers. Waiting is not acceptable. There is a crisis.

Critics have said that the exclusion of care home staff from a post-Brexit, fast-track visa system for health workers could prove to be an unmitigated disaster and may increase the risk of spreading coronavirus. Professor Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, which represents the largest private providers, has said that the decision amid the pandemic in which 20,000 people have died in UK care homes has the potential to destabilise the sector even further, with disastrous consequences, confirming that there could be no special treatment for carers coming to the UK from the rest of the world.

The Government have said that they hope that Britons will fill the shortfall of around 20,000 workers, equating to 10% of all posts. Currently, 17% of care jobs are filled by foreign citizens. In the debate on Second Reading, I drew attention to this when I said:

“There is a danger that people who cannot get work of their choice are pushed into doing care work, with such horrifying results as happened at Whorlton Hall near Barnard Castle, Thors Park in Essex and Winterbourne View near Bristol, where patients were abused and bullied. This cruelty was exposed by ‘Panorama’. We must surely try to prevent this sort of thing happening again. I hope the Government will listen before it is too late.” —[Official Report, 22/7/20; col. 2251.]


The health and care visa has been designed to attract the brightest and best from around the world. It has been criticised for excluding front-line care home workers and contractors. It has been pointed out that the minimum salary threshold means that many cleaners, porters and other support staff will not qualify. This will discriminate against severely disabled people living in their own home who need paid carers. The Government are discriminating against any care workers.

Vic Rayner, the executive director of the National Care Forum, has said that in London, where around 38% of care workers are non-British, the policy could be “an unmitigated disaster.” She said:

“‘We have 122,000 vacancies, growing demand for our services, and then the tap is turned off like this … It is not good news at all. What you need for good care is a stable, skilled and plentiful workforce. And in the context of Covid-19, where you are trying to minimise movement of staff, any shortages might increase movement of staff and use of agency staff, which we are trying to avoid.’”


Robin Hall, the secretary of the Hampshire Care Association, has said that a shallower pool from which to recruit could drive up wages, which, without greater public funding, would mean fewer staff employed per resident. She said:

“‘That will damage the quality of care we can deliver … You also may have to get less choosy about who you employ, and that’s a dreadful thought. A lot of our EU staff are highly skilled. They are smart, articulate and speak three or four languages. We don’t get that quality of applicants from the UK because of the status the profession has.’”


With the advances in medical treatment made over the years, many severely disabled people are living in the community in their own home. Many of them need live-in or daily carers. We also have an increasing elderly population. A bright young man called David who broke his neck in a rugby accident and was paralysed from the neck down had been cared for by his mother. As she got older, her arthritis became worse. David was fearful that he might end up in a care home, which was something he could not accept. David lived in a comfortable bungalow with a garden and a lily pond. One day he was found drowned in that pond. In desperation, he had driven his electric wheelchair into it to end his life. Surely we do not want more cases like that.

Good care workers who work in people’s homes must be dedicated to the job, get satisfaction from it, be honest, skilled, compassionate and flexible. Caring for severely disabled people is not for everyone, but those who undertake these positions are special and they should be valued, not treated as “also rans”.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on Amendment 66, and I hope that it will be taken seriously.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 30th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 3, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. He, like others, made a very comprehensive speech in defence of the arguments for the maintenance of the social care sector. If we as human beings applauded, as we did earlier this year, this sector, which is central in our fight against Covid-19, then the Government and all of us acting together in Parliament should show due recognition of it and support this amendment. It would allow a report to be carried out within six months of the Bill being passed showing the impact of the ending of free movement and the non-accessibility of visas for care workers on that sector and on our healthcare system.

I have had many letters from those involved in the caring profession, who want us to support this amendment. It is vital and is supported by the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing. At Second Reading, I said that this legislation ends the free movement of citizens from the EU, the EEA and Switzerland to the UK. Many in our social care sector come from those countries. They provide an invaluable service with care, compassion, hard work and diligence to a large range of people who are deeply unwell. That work has become particularly acute during our ongoing Covid crisis. At a stroke, the decision to end free movement diminishes the UK. Not only does it break family ties and damage our economy but it creates huge obstacles for employers and degrades international research, co-operation and understanding. It also derails our social care sector.

Social care is already under pressure not only because of Covid but because of rising waiting lists for health and medical care in the health service. If people are not allowed to remain and are no longer employed in the National Health Service, which we cherish, that will place it under a tremendous burden. We should try to remove that burden, so I make a special plea to the Minister to accept the amendment and ensure that a report is made available within six months of the passing of this legislation. Perhaps for the first time, we will be able to see, in statistical data, the contribution made by these people and by our social care sector, as well as the deficits in the sector where the Government need to plug the holes.

If the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, who I believe is already of this mind, decides to push the amendment to a Division, I will support him.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, in supporting Amendment 3, I congratulate the movers. However, I hope that the Government will realise that we are now in a social care crisis and that we should face up to the challenges now. There is a serious shortage of live-in carers to help disabled people, due to the combination of coronavirus and Brexit. Good social care takes the pressure off the NHS.

Many elderly and disabled people are at serious risk because they have had their benefits cut. Coupled with shrinking local authority budgets, the workforce is under pressure exactly when it is needed most. Also, the vast proportion of migrant employees in social care will be ineligible to work in the UK ,as most care workers’ earnings do not meet the threshold for the new skilled visa, as has been mentioned several times.

I wish Amendment 3 good luck.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I was not able to take part in Committee because of the all-consuming HS2 Committee, along with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, who I see is in his place. However, I sat in on part of the debate and heard the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Hunt of King’s Heath, a very formidable pair when they debate these issues. It is rather like facing Federer and Djokovic at the same time, because of their very stringent remarks. In a conversation outside the Chamber, I said to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that from what I had heard, I thought that he rather had a point. We all know where we want to be with social care. We want a well-paid and well-motivated workforce. We all know, sadly, where we are, and as he said in his previous remarks and repeated today, it is a question of the transition, of how we get from where we are to where we want to be.

Two things have happened since the previous debate. First, we had a report yesterday from the Migration Advisory Committee, which, as I am sure that the Minister will say when she winds up, is particularly concerned by the problem we face of a sudden end to the situation we are facing today, a precipice, before we reach any better solution. Incidentally, the MAC’s report covers 650 pages; I hope that when the Home Office look at some of these reports it cuts down the bulk. I do not know whether Ministers read all these reports, but it has become pretty much impossible. We are almost beyond despair when we see such a bulky product.

The second thing to have happened since the previous debate is the Chancellor’s Statement last Thursday. He flagged up in detail the situation which we all have been facing regarding unemployment, and finally put some numbers on it, pointing out that with the withdrawal of the very supportive job system that he has at the moment, we may well be looking at an additional 2 million unemployed people. At the moment, there are an estimated 122,000 vacancies in the social care sector, but surely it is not beyond the wit of God to find among those 2 million people some who might help in the social care sector. Indeed, it is likely that they will be exactly the sort of people who could care for people—they are people from the retail sector and from the hospitality sector. Some of them may not have exactly the right aptitudes and attitudes, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said—a nightclub bouncer might not be exactly the right person to go into the social care sector—but many will have exactly the human skills that we are looking for. If you cannot find 122,000 people from that additional 2 million unemployed, you really are not trying.

It is fair to say that many of the companies in this area who manage the care homes are a motley crew. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in the previous debate, made the point that many of the private equity companies got into this area and—sad to say—piled up debt on many of these companies and have sought a way out without too much care for the social consequences or the effect on their clients. That is a fair point, which I am worried about as well, but there are also many good companies in this area, trying to do good work, who really care about their clients and are trying to find a way forward. Therefore, we should give them the opportunity of recruiting from among those British people who may become unemployed.

As for the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that this is a sector that overall is controlled by the Government, that is fair, but none the less the Government are providing £1.5 billion of extra money for the sector through additional local authority subvention. There is also the Skills for Care programme, which is ongoing. This all indicates that there may be additional support for a company which is trying to do the right thing.

The MAC also said in its report that immigration is not the answer in the long term, and I do not think it should be. It highlights that, all too often, we have looked at recruitment difficulties and said that we must import from abroad, rather than looking at it the other way around, at what the problems are and how we can recruit, train and pay properly the people in this country before we look abroad. Indeed, I had the advantage of a personal chat about this with Professor Bell, the new chair of the MAC, and he made a very interesting point. He said that, in other countries with an equivalent of the Migration Advisory Committee, its reports do not just go to the Home Office, as they do here, but in the first instance to the education, business and health departments, with the implication “What are you doing to solve the problems of recruitment yourselves, before we even consider going abroad for further support?” Traditionally, we have too easily looked at this the wrong way around.

Mention has been made of the British Medical Association’s briefing, which we have all seen today. Once again, it makes the same mistake by talking about how we must import people to help with the obvious problems of recruitment in various sectors, from doctors and nurses to social care workers, but there are two remarkable omissions in that briefing. First, there is no mention of manpower planning in the NHS. Yet, as my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out in a previous debate on this subject, 43% of those who apply for a nursing course are turned away. I cannot believe that 43% of those who apply are inadequate for the job, but they are being turned away for some reason. Equally, we do not know the situation with doctors, where there are similar figures. But, none the less, we should look at manpower planning as a whole in the NHS sector.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued) & Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 5th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Earl is a very civilised man, and it is always very refreshing to hear him. We have become a highly regarded and enviable centre of the arts in the world. The first thing that any of us who are involved at all know—and I have a son-in-law who is a professional singer and other members of the family who are involved in the arts—is that that by definition the arts and creative activities that they involve know no national frontiers. They are international. My goodness, how we flock to hear the music of foreign composers and singers from other countries. In drama, the same story is true. This is a creative element which helps to build a positive profile of Britain in the world.

I find it very sad indeed that people wanting to participate here and make a contribution to the world by participating here, and certainly to our enjoyment in this country, should encounter these physical barriers and the rest. It is important that if we take any pride at all in the reputation of the UK and of the place of respect and envy that we have reached in the world, this amendment needs to be addressed very seriously. I know the Minister is a highly civilised person and I am sure she will take the point that we should be encouraging people to come and participate in that activity.

The other point I shall make is that I am involved, marginally, in several universities in Britain. It may be argued that the number of overseas students wanting to come here defies the predictions of those who have had anxieties, but in this amendment we are talking not about undergraduate students but about the quality of research. The quality of research and of higher education depends upon international input. It is inseparable. It is not just something with which we may or may not make some money. It is integral to the real quality of higher education research.

Again, we should be welcoming people from abroad and encouraging them to come and participate in that activity. There is too much evidence that, whatever may be happening at undergraduate level with numbers of students, there are now too many people of real quality who are thinking twice about settling with their family in this country. That is a tragedy, and we should do anything we can do to make them welcome. We should have a most welcoming reception at immigration points in this country, at ports of entry and the rest, so that people understand how much we value and appreciate them. I do not know about other noble Lords, but I am sure that many of them and the Minister share a sense of richness, enjoyment and fulfilment at the quality of our arts and our research. This is an important amendment and I am delighted that the noble Earl has put it forward.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 25 and thank the noble Lords who tabled it. In these difficult times we need to recruit international research and innovation staff more than ever. It is important that we welcome them and make the UK an attractive place for them to do their research. If it is too difficult to attract them, they will go elsewhere. I speak from personal experience as I have a cousin who was not given enough time to do his clinical research in microbiology. He emigrated to Australia and is now a professor.

A group of noble Lords were invited to visit the Crick Institute—this was before coronavirus. The director told us that he had had a difficult time getting a bright Japanese research student in to do his work. Also, a highly intelligent German researcher, doing research on cancer, had to return to Germany because she did not know if she would get a grant when her EU one ran out.

I ask the Minister if she can tell your Lordships that visa costs will not form a barrier to attracting talented researchers from across the world and that visas will be easy to access, with their benefits effectively communicated, to ensure access from all levels of the research ecosystem. I also hope that people from the arts and entertainment industry will be able to travel easily. It will be a sad disaster if they are restricted by a bureaucratic nightmare.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Patel, is right in what he said about life sciences. However, this is for young people from all over the world, not specifically the EEA, although the Bill is specific to the EEA. Whatever system comes in, we must ensure that the life sciences economy is encouraged and developed, and maintains our position as a world leader.

On artists, as rightly highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, I suspect all noble Lords enjoy opera, theatre or music—whatever our particular interests are. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is right that anybody in an orchestra should expect a five-year assignment. In my experience—and I do not have particular experience of the Birmingham orchestra—the norm is two to three years, when there is a review, but I may be wrong. This is certainly a different problem from that of life sciences. It needs that flexibility because some operas or plays run for a long time, but some do not. My wife was deeply involved in saving the Almeida Theatre in Islington. That does short-term runs, but other theatres have long-term runs. I will listen to my noble friend.

I will make one suggestion though, as I am deeply involved in south Asia. We have two sorts of visas for Sri Lanka and I think the same for India. Short-term business visas are given a priority by our high commissions, because they are to do with trade and we want to trade internationally, backwards and forwards. They function well, frankly, because the people on the ground, in our high commissions, are well briefed. There is a huge challenge, and it is not far off, for every one of our embassies in the EU to have people who are fully briefed, in depth, on exactly how the system works, however it may end up.

We are not good at communicating as government. We have seen too many examples of that recently. We do not have much time and, if it can work in this part of the world, which I know a lot about, I do not see why it should not work in the parts of the European community to which this applies. I will listen to my noble friend on the Front Bench, but there is a problem here that needs to be addressed. I will finish how I finished the other night. I think we are addressing this for the temporary workers bringing in the harvest, root crops, et cetera, and this is not that dissimilar.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment and the powerful, eloquent arguments he put forward, honed by the noble Lord, Lord Polak, and the compelling arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and supported by every other speaker so far in this debate.

I hate to bore the House by repeating what I have said before about those entering the United Kingdom to visit, without a visa, who want to rent a property for the six months they will be here. The Government say that these people—and from 1 January they will be EEA and Swiss nationals—have to produce to the landlord physical proof of their nationality and the fact that they entered the United Kingdom within the last six months.

It has been confirmed to me by the Minister that there are no plans to have any digital proof of the status of those EEA and Swiss nationals visiting for six months that a landlord would be able to access to confirm that they can rent the property. So, we have a situation where, if an EEA or Swiss national, after 1 January, wants to rent a property for more than six months, they need a digital-only proof that it is possible, but if the EEA national has entered the United Kingdom within the last six months, it is solely physical proof that the landlord needs. There are no plans to change that process in the future. So, any argument that the Government are moving to a wholly digital system in the future is not true, certainly in relation to the circumstances I have outlined, which, therefore, knocks away a major argument of the Government’s against this amendment.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, over the years, I have often received pleas for help to support various campaigns. But over the last few days, like other noble Lords, I have been inundated with a multitude of emails—over 80—asking for support with changing a digital-only immigration status to one that has hard copies as well. I support Amendment 18. A digital-only immigration status will create new barriers for EU citizens, especially the elderly and the most vulnerable, who may not have the necessary skills and equipment. They need alternative ways of accessing services. This is not a fair way to treat our friends and neighbours.

EU citizens can prove their new immigration status only through the Home Office website. What happens when the website fails? Websites do fail. There should always be a back-up. Does the Minister agree? What happened on Wednesday and today are an example. Is that not a sign that this amendment should be accepted? In addition, if any one part of the digital checking process fails, people without a physical form of back-up will be vulnerable.

There should not be a two-tier system for proving the right to stay in the UK. There should be an acceptable system for all citizens in the UK and in the EU. I have a god-daughter living in France who is married to a Frenchman. This Bill is inhuman. Many EU citizens living in the UK own property, having paid their taxes. They have acquired settled status, but without physical proof of their identity they are really concerned. The letter they received states clearly that it is not proof of their identity. If they do not have hard proof, they feel very vulnerable. They need physical proof of who they are and of what rights they have earned. I congratulate and thank the noble Lords who have tabled Amendment 18, which I support.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, who spoke so eloquently to this amendment and will show a little solidarity with him as we approach our fifth anniversary: we were introduced to this place on the same day. I congratulate all those who have had the courage to sign this amendment. I declare my interest as chairman of the national Proof of Age Standards Scheme board and as a previous chair of the ad hoc committee of this place on the Licensing Act 2003. I should also declare that my mother became a naturalised Brit in 1948 when she met and married my father and moved to Britain in that year.

I welcome the digital age but, as the recently concluded consultation on developing UK standards for the physical presentation of digital proof of age that the PASS board undertook showed, while there is a future role for digital, physical checks provide important safeguards, as witnessed by the many emails that I, like other noble Lords, have received in preparation for this debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Oates, referred to the two recent technical failures in this Chamber which highlighted the current limitations of digital technology. I also refer to my experience, which was shared by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, when in 2014 or 2015 Defra decided it would go to digital-only applications for farm payments. In the teeth of fierce opposition from the EFRA Committee, which I had the honour to chair at that time, and from across the House in the other place, we persuaded the Government to move from digital-only applications to paper applications as well for many of the reasons that my noble friend Lord Randall gave. In North Yorkshire, there are many pockets, particularly in the Vale of Pickering and the Vale of York, where the mobile signal is woeful and broadband is very poor. You have farmers trying to log on to apply for their farm payments while their school-age children are trying to do their homework, and there is simply not the bandwidth for that.

For these reasons, I urge my noble friend, who is held in respect and affection in this place, to set aside digital only when she sums up the debate this evening. I can find no reason in my heart or my conscience to vote against this amendment, and if it is pressed to a vote I shall certainly support it.