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

Lord Polak Excerpts

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

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 18 in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Polak, Lord Kerslake and Lord McNicol of West Kilbride. In doing so, I give notice of my intention to test the opinion of the House unless the Government are willing to move on this issue. I also thank all noble Lords who are speaking in the debate and all those who have spoken in previous debates over the years; they have shown consistent support on this issue.

It seems that we have been over this ground on numerous occasions over the past few years. In that time, the Government have failed to put forward any convincing arguments to deny EEA nationals, alone among all of the people residing in the United Kingdom, physical proof of their right to do so. This amendment would right that wrong and in doing so it would alleviate anxiety for millions of people, in particular the elderly and the most vulnerable.

The amendment has no partisan or ideological flavour and it is backed by Peers from all sides of the House, from all parties and from none. It is simply a practical measure to make life easier for a large number of people and to deliver a consistent system of proof of residents’ rights which does not discriminate between nationalities. It is deliberately modest in its ambitions. It does not require that physical proof is issued to every EEA national who is granted settled status, only that EEA nationals must be provided with physical proof of their status if they request it.

The Government’s arguments against this very modest proposal seem to be as follows. The first is that offering both digital and physical proof of status would be confusing. That argument is hard to understand because this is exactly the system that operates for all other permanent residents in our country. Far from avoiding confusion, a digital-only system will sow it in abundance. Landlords, employers and others required to check immigration status will now be confronted by two systems, one for EEA nationals and one for non-EEA nationals. They may wonder at this discrimination between nationalities and, given that they face crippling fines and the possibility of imprisonment if they get things wrong, they may decide that in the absence of physical proof, it is safer to replicate the Government’s discrimination and not to employ, rent a property to or provide a service to an EEA national.

Secondly, the Government claim that a digital proof is better than a physical proof because a digital proof cannot be lost. The answer to this is simple. We are not suggesting the removal of digital proof or digital records; we are simply arguing that physical proof should complement digital status. None the less, it is worth questioning the Government’s repeated claims in Committee about the resilience and robustness of the digital system. These arguments come to us in a month in which the Tokyo stock exchange lost a full day of trading due to a technological failure not only of its main system but also of its back-up, the Conservative Party virtual conference was rendered inaccessible to many of its delegates, denying them what is doubtless, for Conservatives at least, the unrivalled pleasure of a speech by Michael Gove, and of course the failure of our own House of Lords voting system when we were discussing this very Bill on Wednesday last and the failure of our hybrid proceedings this afternoon.

Let us be clear: systems failures are not a matter for the history books but happen every day. Technical faults occurred on the EU settled status scheme website in August this year, a nationwide failure of the US Customs and Border Protection system happened in August last year, and we all know of the scandalous injustice visited on sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses as a result of the supposedly infallible Horizon IT system. In each case, those responsible made extravagant and categorical claims about the robustness and resilience of their system.

Even temporary failures may give rise to permanent effects. If an employer or a landlord is unable to access the system at the point they have to decide between potential employees or tenants, the likelihood is they will give the job or rent the home to someone who can provide physical proof of their right to work or rent accommodation.

Thirdly, the Government argue that they intend to move to a wholly digital system in future and that it therefore makes sense for this new settled status scheme to adopt a digital-only model from the outset. It makes no sense at all. If a digital-only system is to be adopted, it should be extensively trialled in advance with widespread pilot schemes conducted with citizens who are confident in their status and who have the security of physical documentation as well. Australia, one of the few countries to have moved to a digital-only system, trialled it over a period of more than a decade.

As I said in Committee, we should not conduct an experiment with the lives of millions of people who are in receipt of an entirely new status, whose rights are not even underpinned in primary legislation and who are understandably nervous about their status, given the Government’s declared intention to violate the very treaty on which that status is based. We should especially not conduct an experiment with the lives of millions of people when the one trial the Government have undertaken, which involved non-EU citizens who had the back-up of a physical residence card, found the following:

“There is a clearly identified user need for the physical card at present, and without strong evidence that this need can be mitigated for vulnerable, low-digital skill users, it should be retained.”


I asked the Minister in Committee to explain to the House what has changed since the Government made that assessment in 2018. She either could not or would not answer that question. Neither could she tell us when the policy equality statement related to this policy, which the Government have confirmed exists, will be published. It is unacceptable that we are being asked to decide on legislation that will affect millions of lives when the Government are withholding from us such vital information, so I ask the Minister to address these issues in her response.

On every occasion we have discussed this matter, I have asked the Minister and other members of the Government, just as my noble friend Lady Hamwee did on an earlier amendment this afternoon, to try to walk in the shoes of others and to understand the huge anxiety which the Government’s refusal to listen and make this minor change is causing to EEA nationals, particularly to the elderly, vulnerable and those who lack IT literacy. At the end of the day, this argument is not about technology, documents or computer systems—it is about people’s lives, whether EEA nationals can feel secure in the status on which their whole lives are based, and whether the elderly and vulnerable can operate the system without dependency on others. It is about whether victims of domestic abuse will face further misery as an abusive partner exercises control over their lives through control of the email address on which their status is based, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, raised in Committee. It is about whether those seeking employment, accommodation or access to services will be discriminated against by employers, landlords or service providers who are confused that EEA nationals alone cannot produce physical documentation.

The case for this modest amendment is overwhelming. The practical arguments demand it, the principle of non-discrimination requires it, and the most basic level of consideration for the EEA nationals who have made their home with us compels it. I beg to move.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for his tenacity. We sat together on the Justice Committee some years ago, discussing these exact issues. As I stated at Second Reading, I am pleased to add my name to the amendment. I also thank my noble friends Lord Parkinson and the Minister for the time they gave me last week.

Like other noble Lords, I have received many messages from individuals supporting the amendment, from people whom I have never met to a number of colleagues from all sides of the Chamber—and I am grateful for that. As I have stated, the amendment is not political in nature but practical and sensible, and it should not prove onerous, as it mandates the Government to provide physical proof only if requested by an individual. Rather than giving my own opinion, I quote from a letter that I received from Maria:

“I am an EU national who has been based in the UK for over 26 years. As of 1 July 2021, I will be faced with proving my right to live and work here on a continual basis, hindered by the fact that I have no physical document with which to do so. Instead, for every different employer I work for, I will need to go through a lengthy, contorted, multi-step process involving my passport, my birth date, a unique one-off code sent to my phone, the employer’s email address, their business details and us both accessing the government website separately. I also must count on having all the necessary correct information to hand, the wi-fi connection being strong enough, the website not being down and there being no access errors with the database. In addition, I must hope that the other party is willing enough to go through the entire complex and time-consuming process with me. This is also the process I will need to go through to access the NHS, to rent a flat or, indeed, convince a sceptical airline employee abroad that I have the right to return to the UK without a visa in my passport or a physical document.”