Citizens’ Rights (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Wood of Anfield Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Anelay, and I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for his excellent speech. I also want to say what a pleasure it was to serve under him on the EU Committee and the European Affairs Committee, which he chaired with distinction, good humour and balance for so long. However, I suppose that European affairs’ loss is the Cross-Benchers’ gain.

I was chair of the European Affairs Committee for six weeks. My tenure did not move markets in the way that someone else’s six-week tenure in charge in another place did. However, we managed to host witness sessions on developments regarding EU citizens’ rights since our July 2021 report, and sent the Home Secretary the 25 May letter that has been mentioned.

Brexit was always going to create difficulty and complexity for EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU, and many of the issues that have arisen have been addressed. However, far too many remain; some show no signs of improving after many years, and others are getting worse. In addition, as I will point out later, problems are still arising for UK citizens abroad and for EU citizens here in the UK as a result of new decisions that are being made, including some in the last few days, which I will talk about.

I want to touch on three legacy issues—the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, mentioned a couple of them. I will start with the backlog of cases. Estimates from the3million campaign group—I congratulate it on the excellent, persistent work it does on behalf of EU citizens in the UK—is that the backlog of applications for settled status will take three years to clear. Some 20,000 who applied before the original official deadline have been waiting over two years. This matters not simply for reasons of complexity and uncertainty. If your status is officially designated as “pending”, multiple rights are denied to you: you cannot replace your driving licence or get a new one, get a European health insurance card, apply for a national insurance number or sponsor family members, and multiple other problems arise if you want to prove your right to work or your ability to rent or to travel. Can the Minister please give us a sense of what is being done that has not already been done, say, a month ago to try to address this backlog?

With regard to the High Court’s decision of December 2022, I am afraid that the Government’s response is still inadequate. The court ruled that EU citizens can be required to make only one application for residence to secure their rights under the withdrawal agreement, so the Government’s requirement for a second application—from pre-settled to settled status—was contrary to that agreement. Furthermore, the court ruled that, once granted pre-settled status, EU citizens are automatically entitled to reside permanently here once they have lived continuously in the UK for five years.

As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, nine months on from the judgment, we are still waiting for the Government to implement the requirement to automatically convert pre-settled status holders to settled status once they are eligible. When will that court-required change be introduced? Some people—not myself—suspect that the Government are deliberately treading water on the implementation of the terms of this judgment in the hope that they may not have to make any further remedial measures or changes before the election. I hope that the Minister can disavow that motive when he responds.

Secondly, applicants’ digital status still indicates that the rights of those with pre-settled status will expire after five years, when that is simply not true under the law. When will this be changed?

Thirdly, the Home Secretary’s response to our letter expressed a determination to continue with the policy of encouraging pre-settled status holders to apply for settled status, but the court made it clear that no rights can hang on such an application. Can the Minister explain why this is still government policy?

Looking to the future, there is the looming issue of the new ETIAS—electronic travel information and authorisation system—to be introduced in 2024. The Home Secretary’s reply to our letter states that,

“those with an existing UK immigration status, such as pre-settled or settled status, will not be required to obtain an ETA”.

That is good news, but they will still need to prove to airline and rail carriers that they have the formal status that means they are not required to have an ETA. Where does that proof exist? The answer is: in the advance passenger information system, which is not planned to be introduced until summer 2024, after ETAs have already begun to be introduced. Can the Minister explain how this circle will be squared?

Lastly, I want to ask the Minister about an issue that arose just a few days ago from an administrative policy change. The Immigration Minister issued a Statement announcing

“the removal of the right of administrative review”—[Official Report, Commons, 7/9/23; col. 23WS.]

for settled-status refusals and cancellation decisions made after 5 October this year. I understand the logic of this, as it brings it into line with other kinds of immigration law appeal processes, but campaign groups have said that it will penalise more vulnerable EU citizens and increase the workload on immigration tribunals. Will the Minister please respond to that?