EU Settlement Scheme: Looked-after Children and Care Leavers

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for pursuing this issue and securing this debate via the Backbench Business Committee. I also pay tribute to all hon. Members who have contributed today; a tremendous range of expertise has been on show. I was slightly surprised that no hon. Member wanted to pay tribute to, and thank, our munificent Prime Minister for giving us humble MPs the opportunity to actually debate a Brexit issue today, because apparently that is something we cannot take for granted anymore. Perhaps we can address that issue later today in the main Chamber.

[Luke Graham]

Would the hon. Gentleman confirm the number of hours that were given to the Scottish Parliament to discuss emergency legislation that was rushed through in Holyrood?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I have to say that I do not know the answer to that question. I am sure that it was perfectly adequate. [Interruption.]

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Order. It is probably good that you do not know the answer, because it would be totally out of order.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Thank you very much for coming to my assistance, Mr Bone.

I join hon. Members in welcoming the Minister to her place, but I do have to start with a slightly cheeky question: is she actually the immigration Minister? This settlement scheme is being rolled out and huge reform of the immigration system is ahead, but we spent the summer not knowing who was actually responsible for immigration matters and where I should send my angry letters—or, indeed, my very constructive and helpful letters. If she is the immigration Minister, she can look forward to lots of correspondence in the weeks ahead.

Turning to the issue at hand, other hon. Members have eloquently and persuasively set out the significant challenges that looked-after children and care leavers will face in accessing either the immigration status that is in their best interest, or the citizenship status that they are entitled to and will be in their best interest. I have also heard concerns about the under-representation of children among those who have already applied for settled status.

On the settled status scheme, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said, even though the Home Office is pulling out all the stops—I appreciate it is putting a lot of work and resource into it—hundreds of thousands of EU citizens or their family members will almost certainly not apply for or achieve settled status, or even pre-settled status, by the deadline. As we have heard, for some, that will be due to a lack of awareness or to legal complexities that mean that they do not understand that they need to apply; for others, there will be barriers in relation to the evidence that needs to be sent in.

Looked-after children, care leavers and other vulnerable persons will be over-represented in those groups and the consequences for them of failing to apply in time will be dire, as they will be for everyone affected. Overnight, they will be deemed to be in the country illegally and the full weight of the hostile environment will kick in: university, education, some healthcare, bank accounts, driving licences, employment and social security will all be put out of reach.

What can we do to stop that? From my party’s point of view, the solution is to keep the free movement of people by abandoning Brexit altogether or by securing a deal that includes retaining all the advantages of free movement. It would be brave and surprising if the new Minister were to announce that she accepted that proposition, so if that is not possible, the Prime Minister should do what he, the new Home Secretary and the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster promised during the referendum campaign, which is to enshrine the rights of EU citizens in law.

In a declaratory system, EU nationals would not be required to apply to retain their right to live here, but would be granted that right in an Act of Parliament. They would have to apply to the settled status scheme simply for a document to prove their position in future. Professor Stijn Smismans and the3million have worked extensively on proposals about how to do that; the Home Office should engage with them.

It is not a perfect solution because, of course, after the deadline, hundreds of thousands of people would still not have applied for the necessary evidence of their settled or pre-settled status. However, the simple truth is that they would have the right to be here, and would therefore still be able to provide proof of that right and to secure the necessary documents or other means of proof as soon as it became apparent to them that they were required to do that.

The Home Office’s refusal to listen or understand that simple fact is infuriating. It has made various nonsensical arguments about a declaratory system being responsible for the Windrush fiasco, but that is not what a single inquiry into that horrible episode has determined —it is simply not true. Under a declaratory system, those who missed the deadline would have a chance to rectify their position. Under the Home Office system as established, hundreds of thousands of people—thousands of whom might be looked-after children, care leavers and other vulnerable citizens—will be left here without legal status, which would be an absolute disaster. I call for a declaratory system for everyone, but if that is not possible, I absolutely join other hon. Members in calling for a declaratory system for looked-after children and care leavers. I hope that the Home Office will think about changing paths now.

In the meantime, has the Minister or the Department made any attempt to estimate how many people they expect not to apply before the deadline? Will she make it clear today what will happen to those who miss the deadline, including looked-after children and care leavers? How will they be treated? There has been an incredible lack of clarity on that. If the Home Office will not change tack, MPs should be allowed to debate and vote on the issue. We debated it during the passage of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill. What has happened to that Bill and what will happen to it now?

Regardless of whether the Home Office chooses to change its fundamental approach, or, more likely, is forced to by legislation, or whether it presses ahead with its current model, hon. Members have raised other issues to address and actions to pursue. The Home Office must ensure that there is sufficient funding for awareness-raising programmes, with a particular focus on making sure that local authorities have a clear understanding of what is required of them in relation to looked-after children and care leavers, and the resources to ensure that those groups can obtain all the advice and support they need.

As has been said, the position of many of those youngsters is incredibly complicated. For a child, choosing the right application to make or whether to make an application at all, or knowing whether they might have a right to citizenship, is hugely complicated but has profound implications. We cannot expect social workers to do all that. All those young people must have access to specialist legal advice and support, which should be funded by the Home Office.

The duty of local authorities must be to do everything possible to secure that expert advice, not to provide makeshift alternative advice that they are not qualified to deliver. As other hon. Members have said, that duty must extend to all looked-after children and care leavers, not just those for whom the local authorities have parental responsibility.

I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) about legal aid. The announcement in July 2018 that legal aid for separated children with immigration issues would be reintroduced, including for children who need advice and support to secure EU settled status or understand their right to British citizenship, is yet to be implemented. It is essential that we know what will happen to that proposed change, given that Parliament may not be sitting for much longer. More broadly, immigration and citizenship should be brought within the scope of legal aid, as they are in Scotland.

The distinct issue of citizenship is relevant to many care leavers and looked-after children, because a significant number of them will be entitled to register as British citizens. The key barriers are, again, a lack of awareness and the extortionate cost of vindicating those rights via the registration process, as other hon. Members have said. I repeat, therefore, that we need measures to ensure access to legal advice and to address the outrageous fees being charged by the Home Office. The new Chancellor, when he was Home Secretary, acknowledged that the £1,000 fee was a huge sum of money to charge children; I would say it is disgraceful, particularly when we are talking about looked-after children and care leavers.

At the end of the day, those kids are every bit as entitled to citizenship as anybody in this Chamber and they should not be prevented from obtaining it by extraordinary fees. I urge the Minister not to do what other Immigration Ministers have done, which is to conflate the issue with migration fees or the adult naturalisation processes—they are completely different. We are talking about a group of children for whom Parliament expressly protected the right of citizenship when it ended the general provision of citizenship by birth in 1981. If Home Office officials demanded £1,000 from every mother leaving the maternity ward to secure their kid’s citizenship, there would rightly be outrage, but to charge those kids for theirs is as morally reprehensible. In the case of looked-after children and care leavers, at least, the Home Office must see how outrageous its position has been up to this point and act accordingly.

In conclusion, I congratulate the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham and for Birmingham, Selly Oak on securing the debate. I support them in what they are trying to achieve and will happily work with them to attempt to persuade the Home Office to listen.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Seema Kennedy)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for securing this extremely important debate on the EU settlement scheme and looked-after children and care leavers. The co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group are great champions for children and it is right to discuss this issue today.

The EU settlement scheme is designed to deliver on the Government’s aim that EU citizens can obtain their status quickly and easily. The principle behind it is the presumption of granting status. The Prime Minister has made it clear that EU citizens living in this country will have the absolute certainty of the right to live and remain in this country. Ensuring that those who are most vulnerable, such as looked-after children, are supported to obtain status has always been and continues to be a core element in the delivery of the scheme, and I want to assure all Members who have spoken today, including those who have left their places, that that is a cross-departmental priority for the Government.

My Department has engaged widely, including with the Department for Education, the Local Government Association—my predecessor spoke at its conference, addressing this point—and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, as well as their equivalents in the devolved Administrations and in Northern Ireland, to understand and address the needs of looked-after children and care leavers and to ensure that they are supported. Guidance has been issued regarding the role and responsibilities of local authorities for making or supporting applications for looked-after children.

The scheme was first rolled out in the spring of this year. One million people have been granted status already—that is the figure from August. If we are in a deal situation, the scheme will be open until the middle of 2021. In a no-deal situation, people will have until 31 December next year to apply.

Members have rightly raised a lot of points about the scheme in general and about the specific cohort of children. I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak—he has great experience both from his work in this place and from before that—on the different strata of children that we are discussing.

The system has been designed to make sure that a successor of mine who stands here in 40 years’ time will not be dealing with a system where people do not have their status. That is why we have registration—so that EU citizens, particularly children and vulnerable people who have built their lives in this country—

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Seema Kennedy]

Can I just finish this point? Then I will give way, to either an angry or a helpful comment.

The registration scheme exists so that citizens, particularly children and vulnerable people who have built their lives in this country, do not have difficulty evidencing their rights to live and work here. That speaks to a point made by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green).

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The Minister speaks of her successor in a few years’ time being able to say that everyone has status, but only a declaratory system will do that. If we do not have a declaratory system, it is inevitable that tens of thousands—almost certainly hundreds of thousands—of EU citizens, including vulnerable people, will not have status. Does the Minister accept that? Does the Home Office have an estimate of how many people it expects not to go through the process in time?

[Seema Kennedy]

I profoundly disagree with that point. The registration scheme ensures that those EU citizens who are here will have settled status. If not, there will be differences, because people will not necessarily be able to prove whether they were here at that point.

Focusing specifically on the cohort under discussion, hon. Members have quite rightly referred to the fact that many of those children do not have the same documentation as most of us in this Chamber, because of the life situations they have experienced. We share those concerns. They might have no identity document, as they might have had complex or chaotic lives.

It is absolutely right that local authorities and health and social care trusts in Northern Ireland should obtain the necessary identity documents for a child in care to ensure that they have uninterrupted access to services, but the Home Office guidance on this scheme makes it clear that applicants can apply without an identity document, as they might be unable to provide one because of family circumstances. As far as I am aware, local authorities vouching for the fact can be adequate documentation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I thank the Minister for giving way again—she is being very generous with her time. Charities are telling us that they do not have the resources to do all the work that is required. Has she put in a request to the new Chancellor for additional funding, so that we can leave absolutely no stone unturned in ensuring that we help each and every vulnerable person in this country who needs to apply?

[Seema Kennedy]

The scheme is not designed to require a lawyer or legal advice, so it is simple to use. I recognise that there might be complications in some of the cases involving vulnerable and non-EEA dependents. However, the fact that more than one third of the eligible people have already signed up in six months is a testament to its design as a simple system.