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

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 49. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate. Anyone wishing to press this or any other amendment in the group to a Division should make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 49

Moved by

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Amendment 53 withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 54. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate. Anyone wishing to press this or anything else in this group to a Division should make that clear at the end of the debate.

Amendment 54

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for tabling Amendments 54 and 55 and to the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, for tabling Amendment 65. As noble Lords have noted, in May the Prime Minister asked the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care to exempt NHS and care staff from the immigration health charge, because of the exceptional contribution that they make to healthcare in this country. This exemption will apply to relevant applications and, once our new immigration system is in place, will apply regardless of nationality.

Given that broader scope, we feel that Amendment 54 is unnecessary. On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, on volunteers, the Department of Health and Social Care is developing guidance on who will be eligible to apply for the surcharge reimbursement scheme and will publish that shortly. That involves consultation with the sector, but I would be happy to agree to the meeting that she requested in the meantime to discuss this with the Minister.

I am pleased to say that applicants for the new health and care visa, which was launched on 4 August, are automatically exempt from the charge, in that a draft statutory instrument incorporating this exemption has been laid before Parliament. Those professions eligible to apply for this visa include doctors, nurses and other critical health and care staff. The visa also includes reduced visa fees, and dependent family members are also able to benefit from that. The Department for Health and Social Care is working on a reimbursement scheme for staff in the health and care sector who either do not meet the requirements of the health and care visa or are in the UK on a different visa. More details on that scheme will be published in due course.

We have a fantastic service in our National Health Service. It has been provided by people from all over the world from, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, pointed out, its inception, before we joined what became the EU, and that will be the case long after we leave it. The immigration health surcharge is designed to help support this by ensuring that temporary migrants who come to the UK for more than six months make a fair contribution to the wide range of NHS services available to them. Income from the charge contributes to the long-term sustainability of a health service of which we are all, especially at the moment, justifiably proud. It has raised approximately £1.5 billion in much-needed income for the NHS since its introduction in 2015 to the end of the financial year 2019-20. This income has been shared between the four devolved health administrations in line with the Barnett formula, helping to fund the National Health Service across the UK.

We are introducing a new single immigration system once free movement ends, and our expectation is that people of all nationalities, including those from EEA countries, will pay the surcharge if they are staying for temporary periods of longer than six months, unless an exemption applies. Certain groups of people are exempt from the requirement to pay the surcharge, including those on the health and care visa. Others benefit from a discounted rate. Meanwhile, as I am sure noble Lords will appreciate, the Government are in the process of negotiating reciprocal arrangements with the European Union, and it is important that we do not undermine those negotiations through this Bill.

Amendment 55, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Kennedy, seeks to exclude NHS employers from having to pay the immigration skills charge, where they are recruiting EEA or Swiss citizens. The Migration Advisory Committee has previously supported, in its September 2018 report on the impact of EEA migration in the UK, the continued application of the skills charge without exemptions for particular sectors, alongside salary thresholds as a way to protect against employers using migrant labour to undercut the domestic workforce. The Government stand by this requirement. Immigration must be considered alongside investment in, and development of, the UK’s resident workforce. This is all the more important in the face of any uncertainty caused by the current Covid-19 pandemic.

For the reasons set out, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment tonight.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I have received no requests to speak after the Minister. I call the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, first, my noble friend Lord Rosser has asked me to apologise to the Committee on his behalf, because in a previous debate he did not thank all noble Lords who had spoken or the Minister, in particular. He wanted to put that on record. He meant to do that, and I am happy to correct the record for him.

I thank everybody who has spoken in this debate and the Minister for his response. It is getting late now, so I will not go on, but I thank him for his response and all colleagues who spoke in response. Perhaps we will return to some of these issues on Report. I will certainly look carefully at what the Minister has said, and we may return to it at another stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.