Domestic Abuse Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

Finally, I wish to say that it is really important that we get this Bill on the statute book. We are running out of time. I know we can ping-pong and carry on until we actually get through it, but were we to run out of time and were it not to get on the statute book, that would be the biggest betrayal of victims.

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

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this hugely important debate. First, let me echo what both the Minister and the shadow Minister said about His Royal Highness Prince Philip and about Dame Cheryl Gillan. We will very much miss what would typically have been a knowledgeable and passionate contribution from Dame Cheryl in this debate and in so many debates to come.

Although these Lords amendments cover many significant issues, I shall take only a short time to cover two, as the Bill almost exclusively extends to England and Wales and relates largely to devolved matters. The two excellent Lords amendments I wish to express Scottish National party support for are Lords amendments 40 and 41, which were drafted expressly with a broader scope, touch on a reserved matter—immigration—and have the potential to bring significant benefits to victims from across the UK if we support them today.

Lords amendment 40 would start to roll back the Home Office’s ever-extending network of data sharing agreements and its grab of sweeping exemptions to data protection laws—my party has repeatedly proposed this. These exemptions have contributed to a dangerous situation in which migrants feel unable or reluctant to access potentially vital public services for fear that any information they share will end up being used by the Home Office in a bid to remove them. Domestic abuse is one severe but perfect illustration of that point. Fleeing an abusive partner can of course put women at risk, and none of us would want them to fear seeking the protection and support that they need. The reality, however, is that too often they do, and one reason for that fear is precisely because they do not have faith that the information they are required to share will not result in an attempt to remove them or have other implications for their current and future status here.

That is what Lords amendment 40 effects, by requiring the Home Secretary to put in place

“arrangements to ensure that the personal data…processed for the purpose of”

securing that help and support “is not used” against victims for immigration purposes. We therefore give it our support. I listened to what the Minister said in response, but I do not understand how police guidance can provide any sort of comprehensive answer and I fear that the evidence shows that it will not. It does not provide the necessary or sufficient reassurance that a statutory provision can provide. It is that simple.

Lords amendment 41 is, as we heard, the new clause that would broaden the scope of the domestic violence rule and the concessions so that more victims of domestic abuse here can find safety, knowing that they also have a pathway to leave to remain and do not need endure destitution and homelessness while they pursue it. Now, those possibilities are limited largely to those who are here on spouse visas.

The domestic violence rule and the concessions have been transformative for many victims of domestic abuse who are able to access them. The very same reasons for putting them in place for those on spouse visas clearly also apply to other victims of domestic abuse. If we do not completely break the link between a woman’s lawful residence here and her relationship with an abusive partner, far from helping her, we are hindering her ability to find help and support—we hand power to the abuser. No one wants that but, unless we support the new clause, I fear that is the position that we will risk remaining in.

Again, I do not understand the Government’s answers in response, in particular what was said about the Lords amendment not being true to the original purpose of the rule and the concessions. On the contrary, it is about applying the same purpose, intention and reasoning to a broader group of victims who equally require support and protection, ensuring that they may access them.

In relation to another Government response, the Lord Bishop of Gloucester explained in the other place why the Government’s support for migrant victims, while welcome, is not a comprehensive answer, as the shadow Minister said today. We need bolder action as a matter of urgency. There is already an abundance of evidence that the changes proposed by way of Lords amendment 41 are utterly necessary and could transform lives.

The Government also seem to object that the leave proposed might ultimately be indefinite leave. If they find that objectionable—I do not understand the reasons why they might—rather than reject the amendment outright, they should at least provide for a decent period of time unencumbered by restrictions, including on public funds, to allow victims to get the support that they need and to get their lives back on track.

In a letter to MPs this morning, Ministers argued that migrant victims are not a homogeneous group, and that argument has been repeated this afternoon, but we know that—those advocating Lords amendment 41 know it better than anyone—and supporters of the amendment are not treating them as such. Rather, we would create a space in which complex and diverse needs can be better understood and addressed and where victims are free of the incredibly intimidating coercion and control that precarious immigration status can cause a victim. The Government risk denying victims that space and the possibility of addressing their diverse needs.

In conclusion, the focus should not be on the nature of victims’ immigration status or the type of visa that they hold; it should be on their needs as victims. Despite the Government’s protestations to the contrary, Lords amendment 41 would be another step towards ensuring that that happens. The question for this House is: what is more important, protecting and supporting victims, or protecting Home Office powers over migration? We say, support the victims, and we therefore give our full support to the Lords amendments.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) [V]]

I join in the tributes to Cheryl Gillan, whom we all miss badly from this House and from debates such as this one in which she has been a participant for so many years.

I welcome the progress made on the Bill with the work done in the House of Lords. It is an important Bill and I commend the work on it of the Minister, the Opposition Front Benchers and all those in the Lords who sought to improve and build on it, because it got better as a result of all that work along the way. We have seen, for example, the addition of references to children as part of the Bill—something that our Home Affairs Committee recommended some years ago—and the amendments to reflect the issues raised earlier in our Commons debates about making non-fatal strangulation an offence.

I want to focus in particular on two areas where the Lords have proposed amendments that the Government are still resisting. The first is to support points made by other Members about the need to make sure that migrant women are not deterred from coming forward to get help when they desperately need it. These can be some of the most vulnerable women of all, threatened by perpetrators with losing their immigration status. Effectively, what the perpetrators are doing is exploiting the immigration system to exert coercive control over vulnerable women. We have a responsibility to make sure that that cannot happen, but, again, the Government are not going far enough in that regard.

The second area that I want to address is in relation to Lords amendment 42, which was put forward by Baroness Royall with support from across the Lords, including from Baroness Newlove. It is similar to an amendment that I put forward at an earlier stage in the Bill’s consideration, which the Government did say they would consider, because they recognised the importance of the issue. It builds on the work that Laura Richards at Paladin has done and has the support of hundreds of thousands of people who have signed petitions for stronger action against repeat perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalking.

We know that there are too many cases of awful crimes against women—serious domestic abuse, awful violence, horrendous stalking, murder, and lives that are lost as a result of terrible crimes—and yet the perpetrator has committed crimes before. They may have been involved in other stalking offences, harassment, repeated domestic abuse or violence. They move from one victim to another and sometimes from one town or region to another. They find someone new to control and to abuse and someone else whose lives they can destroy. Too often, when those previous crimes emerge, everyone sighs in sadness, everyone wishes that the signs had been picked up earlier, everyone says that the dots should have been joined, and everyone says that lessons should be learned, but in the end they never are and not enough changes. We cannot carry on like this.

Hollie Gazzard was stalked and murdered by a man who was involved in 24 previous violent offences, including 12 on an ex-partner. Even though he had been reported to the police many times, there was no proactive risk assessment, and there was no management despite his previous violent offences. Linzi Ashton was raped, strangled and murdered by a man who had strangled two previous partners, but his repeat pattern of abuse towards women was not picked up. Jane Clough, an A&E nurse, was stalked and then murdered by a violent ex-partner, even though he had a history of abusing other women. He was not on the high-risk offenders register and the police were not monitoring him.

There are so many cases. Shana Grice was stalked and murdered in 2016. The man who killed her had abused 13 girls before, yet there was still no focus on him as a perpetrator, and no intelligence or information sharing. Faced with these cases, where perpetrators have repeated convictions for domestic abuse or for stalking, why on earth are their names not on the high-risk offenders register? Why on earth is there not a process to identify or manage these high-risk individuals? Why on earth do the police not take these cases seriously, because it is not happening? That is what Lords amendment 42 is all about. It adds convicted serial domestic abusers and stalkers to the high-risk offenders register so that police and specialist agencies can work together to prevent them from offending again and to use the multi-agency public protection arrangements to keep more women safe.

We know that, when it comes to domestic abuse, stalking, or violence against women, the most serious offenders are those repeat offenders. That is where we should be trying to focus more of our efforts.

Let me consider the Government’s objections. The Minister says that they will draw up a perpetrators strategy, which was part of Lords amendment 42. That is strongly welcome, but the Government are not going far enough with their plans for that strategy. For example, the strategy currently does not include stalking, which it needs to do, and it is not a replacement for the high risk register and the proper monitoring and interventions underpinned by statute that we need.

The Minister has said that a new category 4 is not needed on the high-risk offenders register—a new category from MAPPA—because these dangerous people can be included in category 3. The trouble is that just because in theory some of them can be does not mean that most of them are. The system is not working; simply adding a bit more guidance, a bit more urging and a bit more soul searching will not mean they are included in practice either.

Category 3 has historically been interpreted very narrowly and is interpreted by gatekeepers—people who are concerned about stretched resources and will continue to be so. At the moment, what that means in practice is that police, probation officers and other agencies involved in the system are simply not treating repeat perpetrators —those with repeat domestic abuse convictions—as high- risk offenders, yet they are high risk. Someone who has already been convicted of domestic abuse against a series of different women is a risk to other women and needs to be properly assessed, yet at the moment the system does not assess them as high risk. That is what we are trying to fundamentally change through legislation, to send a strong signal through the system—to police officers, specialist agencies and probation services across the country—that these cases are high risk and put other women at risk in future. They need to be properly assessed and managed to keep other women safe.

UK Asylum System and Asylum Seekers’ Mental Health

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Westminster Hall

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

That is very kind of you, Sir Charles. I expect I could speak for about six hours, but I shall do my best to confine myself.

We are at a pivotal moment for our asylum system, which is in a fragile state and in danger of breaking, because it is in desperate need of investment and of policies to improve it. Instead, the Government propose to take a massive hammer to it. They are not fixing it, but crushing it beyond repair. It is on that rather sad note that I offer congratulations and thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) for securing such a crucial debate about the mental health of asylum seekers, some of the most vulnerable people we have responsibility for, whether or not they become refugees, and the impact that the asylum system has on them. I congratulate my hon. Friend, and all the hon. Members who have taken part, on their speeches, which amounted to a pitch perfect critique of where we are at. As we have heard, too often people’s experience of the system is grim, and makes the mental health of already struggling people even worse. Those are people who have fled persecution and endured traumatising journeys, and too often are made even more ill by a system that should be helping and supporting them.

The debate has also reflected the fact that the situation works on two levels. First, there are policies that in principle we would all support, but the problem is that in practice they have been starved of resources or implemented in a faulty way, to the detriment of asylum seekers’ mental health. Secondly, the Government have made deliberate policy choices that are designed to tackle the big flying pig that they always point to—the so-called pull factor. In short, they choose to treat asylum seekers here, often, outrageously cruelly and inhumanely, to deter other people from coming here to claim asylum. As a point of principle that is thoroughly objectionable.

Depressingly, the Government’s so-called new plan for the asylum system will make things a million times worse, leaving even more people in limbo facing endless uncertainty and restricted rights. That is a fast track to an upsurge in mental ill health among asylum seekers. That is all on the pretext of a manufactured crisis in numbers, when in reality in international terms the UK receives a tiny number of asylum applications here, that it should be capable fairly easily of processing swiftly, efficiently and fairly. Rather, the crisis that we face is in Home Office resourcing and competence.

That brings me to the huge list of policies that the Government should fix, instead of destroying the asylum system altogether. Each of those could, as I have said, merit a lengthy debate in its own right. First, hon. Members have rightly mentioned the issue of decision making. First and foremost, it is too slow, as several Members have pointed out. That, of course, has been exacerbated by the pandemic, but it was already bad, and getting worse, beforehand. Secondly, too many poor decisions are made. About 40% of appeals against asylum refusals are successful. We need proper resourcing and training to resolve that.

A further issue is the dispersed asylum accommodation model, which has been thoroughly analysed in several Home Affairs Committee reports. It is right in principle to house asylum seekers in communities; but that approach is struggling in practice, thanks to the model of outsourcing where asylum seekers are placed in inappropriate accommodation and sometimes in altogether poor conditions. Ministers regularly complain that one of the issues is that not enough councils take part. I agree, but lots of councils that would want to take part are put off by the way that that process works. If the Minister wants me to, I shall happily arrange a meeting between him and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—and I am sure that the Local Government Association would want that too—to discuss the barriers to new local authorities getting involved. They include financing, and a them having a proper democratic say in how asylum seekers are treated and where they are placed in asylum dispersal areas.

We have heard mention this afternoon of the level of asylum support. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked how anyone could survive on it. It is a disgracefully low level. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West has championed the right to work through a Bill and on various other occasions. To use her words, excluding asylum seekers from the labour market altogether makes no sense at all. Work is hugely important for self-esteem and self-worth, and the implications for mental ill health of leaving folk out of work for months on end are obvious.

We have heard about the military barracks, and I have spoken about that absolutely disgraceful episode previously. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) was absolutely right to ring the alarm bells about the move to institutional reception centres that lies ahead. These military barracks seem to be a prototype of that. That would be a horrendous road to go down.

On family reunion, the UK has already been criticised for its restrictive rules for children who are here and for adult children who are abroad. My hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) sought to fix that with his private Member’s Bill, but now things are set to be worse, with family reunion rights restricted for those who come to claim asylum here.

I barely have time to mention the new immigration rules. Restricting the admissibility of claims is just going to lead to asylum seekers being left in limbo for a further six months. An attack on the appeals process seems to be proposed in the Government’s new consultation document.

Ultimately, what this boils down to is that the Opposition want to put in place an asylum system that is designed to protect people and assumes that they have fled persecution. We should address abuse with fast decision making so that abusers do not benefit from trying to game the system. The Government seem to have a presumption of abuse, and therefore they intend to make the system as painful as possible to deter it. That is just a thoroughly inhumane way to go about things.

Immigration and Nationality Application Fees

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. Thank you for calling me. I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for securing this important debate and for her opening speech, which set the scene brilliantly.

Members have eloquently and powerfully raised some strong examples of fees applied by the Home Office that are unreasonable, unfair and sometimes frankly utterly extortionate. We have heard about citizenship fees right across the board. Some have mentioned the immigration health surcharge, which my party opposes outright. Members also spoke powerfully about NHS and other frontline workers, to whom we owe so much.

We have heard a lot about fees for children, including those in the care system, and several hon. Members raised the fees that families face. Many family members are forced apart by them, and others have to make awful calls, such as which child they can afford to put forward for citizenship and which they have to leave behind—what an awful choice to have to make.

We have just heard about some of the other associated costs of applications, from legal fees to biometrics and the travel that is involved for some. Other hon. Members raised the quality of service provided in response to payment of those fees. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) rightly continues to champion the case of highly skilled migrants.

There are many other causes that we could have mentioned today. One is the fees faced by former members of the armed forces who want to settle in the United Kingdom. I support all those complaints, but in the time available I will focus on two issues that impact on children in particular, as others have done. I will close by suggesting that all these various complaints mean that it is time that we rethink the statutory scheme that guides the Home Office when it is setting fees.

As it stands, the Home Office is entitled to think about only the following factors when setting fees: processing costs, the benefits that will accrue to the applicant and others, the cost of other immigration and nationality functions, economic growth, international comparisons and international agreements. There are problems with that framework and how the Home Office is currently applying it.

I will start with the fees that are charged to children who are registering their right to British citizenship. These are kids who are born here but are not automatically British and are subsequently entitled to register as such, either because their parents become settled or become citizens or because they are here for the first 10 years of their lives. Those rights were set out by Parliament in 1981 when it repealed automatic citizenship by birth alone in the United Kingdom. Those rights are there to protect kids for whom the reality is that the UK is their home and, de facto, their country of nationality. Unlike those of us who are British at birth automatically and pay no fee for the privilege, those kids, as we have heard, are required to pay just over £1,000. The cost to the Home Office of processing the application is approximately one third of that.

In essence, what we have here is a horrendous, great big poll tax on the British citizenship of certain children—one that brooks no waivers or exceptions, and one that Home Office lawyers have acknowledged in court has

“a serious adverse impact on the ability of a significant number of children to apply successfully for registration”

as British citizens.

I know that the Minister knows the arguments well; he has met with the fantastic campaign group We Belong, previously known as Let Us Learn, and I appreciate that he did that.

That said, his predecessor met with the equally brilliant Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens and, in the absence of any action or response, PRCBC successfully persuaded the Court of Appeal that these fees breach the statutory duties of the Home Office regarding the best interests of the child. The Supreme Court will, if required, go on to determine whether the fees are also illegal on the grounds that they render the statutory rights impossible for so many.

I appreciate that the litigation may mean the Minister cannot say too much today, but the fact that these fees need to be looked at again means it is all the more important that, as cross-party MPs, we re-emphasise the opposition to them—and there is cross-party opposition. This is a grave injustice. As Members on both sides have said, citizenship is not just a matter of the colour of one’s passport; it has profound implications on a sense of identity, belonging, community integration, and so on.

If litigation forces a different approach, that would be brilliant, but it would be so much better if the Home Office and Treasury just listen to the arguments and made the change themselves. These kids are entitled to British citizenship, and fees should not stop them from accessing it.

The other distinct issue that I want to raise is one that others have touched on: the long route to settlement. This is a 10-year process that people with strong ties of family or private life are put through by the Home Office. The whole design of this route, not just its fee, is cruel, but the expense is especially outrageous.

As we have heard, including the final indefinite leave to remain application, this route requires five applications, currently costing a total of over £12,500 in fees and health surcharges for each individual before they will ever have secure, permanent status. A family of four must pay around £10,000 in fees every two and a half years, and only a little over 10% of that covers the actual cost of the Home Office processing these applications.

In normal times, three quarters, or more, of fee waiver applications are refused by the Home Office, and that then means that applicants have only 10 days to stump up the cash before the whole application is rejected. That puts many back to square one. Indefinite leave applications do not attract a fee waiver at all, leaving many stranded on precarious short-term leave for a long, long, time, so slashing these fees is absolutely essential. Colleagues have spoken powerfully about the impact they are having on the lives of families and children in their constituencies. The immigration health surcharge should be removed from this route. These are people for whom the reality is that the UK is their home, and it will continue to be; the Government should acknowledge that.

In conclusion, Mr McCabe, I want to touch upon the issue of whether or not we need to rethink the overall framework, and I think that we do. I will make two quick points, although I could make many more.

One fundamental problem is that the framework treats all types of application as if they are of the same nature, and that the same considerations should apply. However, issues around citizenship have a profoundly different nature to visit visas, student visas or other types of work visa. Even within citizenship, the right to a nationality in one’s de facto home country is a completely different issue to naturalisation fees for adults who have made a proactive choice to come here and to take up that nationality.

Economic growth or subsidising other parts of the border system might be relevant to certain work visas, but it is absolutely not appropriate or fair to apply those considerations to applications by children for citizenship in their home country. That is why we need to rethink the framework.

Secondly, when considering the benefit that will accrue to the applicant, which is required by statute, it seems to me that the Home Office approach is always “the greater the benefit to the applicant, the more that we should charge them”, but it should not be. Citizenship confers the most profound benefit of any of the applications that the Home Office deals with. We should want the children who have that right to be able to access it. The consequences of them not being able to are really quite troubling, so, in fact, the benefit that will accrue to them is a reason for lowering the fee, rather than trying to squeeze every last penny from it.

There is so much more that could be said in this, but I hope that the Minister will listen, both to the complaints made about specific fees and to the suggestion that we need to look more broadly at the framework that surrounds the process for setting them. Once again, thanks to the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch for securing such a crucial debate, and to Members for engaging in it.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

I hope that we can now send the Bill forward for Royal Assent, get it on to the statute book and make sure, above all, that we thank those in the security services and the legal system who deal, day to day, with grave and pressing matters on our behalf, sometimes in ways that cannot be seen and are not always recognised, and we make sure, where due process has to happen and we have to take exceptional measures, which are not within the norm of the way that we would deal with these things—as TPIMs are not—that we get the balance right. Efforts have been made on both sides to do that, and the Bill is therefore welcome for the way in which it provides for a balanced, constructive way forward.

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

I want to make just three short points, including on the standard of proof required for TPIMs and on the number of extensions that can be granted. First, however, it would be appropriate for me to start by acknowledging that many of the Lords amendments that we are considering tonight, though perhaps not speaking about, respond to concerns about how the Bill would apply to Scotland. That includes, as the Minister said, concerns about polygraph testing and the calculation of release dates. These concerns were raised previously by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) and by the Scottish Government through our Justice Secretary, Humza Yousaf. I welcome the fact that UK Ministers and officials have engaged with those concerns and that a set of amendments has been agreed during the House of Lords proceedings that is acceptable to both Governments. I thank everyone involved for their work on that. That meant, of course, that legislative consent was granted by the Scottish Parliament.

Secondly, turning to TPIMs and the number of times that they can be extended, both Lords amendment 18 and the amendment in lieu are clearly better than the Government’s original position of having no effective upper limit on extensions. However, it is still worth taking a step back and reflecting on the fact that, either way, we will now be doubling, or more than doubling, the length of time that a person can be made to live under really serious TPIM restrictions, while at the same time lowering the standard of proof for imposing them. That still is concerning.

As Lord Anderson said in the House of Lords, there is a danger of TPIMs becoming a more attractive option to the authorities in prosecution. Meanwhile, the warehousing of TPIMs subjects risks becoming the norm in place of genuine attempts to develop and implement exit strategies. To my mind, the four years provided for in the Lords amendment is way more than a sufficient concession to the Government already. For the Government to push for still longer shows a bit of a tin ear to the real and genuine concerns about the nature of these orders. However, with the Opposition having decided to compromise and with Lord Anderson reportedly content, there is no need to divide the House.

Finally, and similarly, the Government and the official Opposition have also previously agreed amendment 17, setting the standard of proof for a TPIM measure as reasonable belief. Again, as we have heard, that is another compromise. It is not as low as reasonable suspicion but not as robust as the balance of probabilities. I believe that the very real concerns about the appropriateness of these standards of proof, raised previously by the Scottish National party, have still not been properly addressed. Those accepting the compromise amendments in the Lords suggested that the difference between reasonable belief and balance of probabilities would be a fine one. I acknowledge that there are very significant legal minds who are content with that compromise, yet, as the Government’s explanatory notes make clear, and as the Minister made clear in his speech, reasonable belief is clearly a lower standard.

As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West said at an earlier stage of the Bill, the case for lowering the standard of proof required

“has not been made out”.—[Official Report, 21 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 2085.]

Indeed, Jonathan Hall, QC, the independent reviewer, remarked in his evidence to the Public Bill Committee:

“If it is right that the current standard of proof is usable and fair, and I think it is…if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 7, Q6.]

My colleagues and I agree with the independent reviewer and regret that the Government and the official Opposition do not at this stage. Instead of dividing the House, we will have to monitor the use of TPIMs ever more closely than before.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD) [V]]

I, too, will speak briefly about TPIMs and the five-year limit. I listened very carefully to the Minister’s speech and the one thing that he did not offer in respect of the extension from four years to five was any actual evidence or justification. It says a lot about the way the Government do business that they seek always to expand the scope of any provision just because they can, rather than because they have any good reason for it.

My noble Friends in the House of Lords tabled an amendment for a two-year limitation on TPIMs, so the move to four years was already a significant compromise. The Minister has not brought forward any reason or evidence to justify the extension to five years, other than the fact that they can.

Like the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) has just said, however, it is not my intention to divide the House this evening, but it is worth putting down a marker. I do not think the Minister was in the House when the issue of control orders was in play, which led eventually, after some judicial intervention, to the creation of TPIMs. It seems to me that by constantly wishing to extend the boundaries of TPIMs, to lower the standard of proof and to extend the period for which they can be introduced, the Government run the very real risk of returning to the courts at some stage. We will eventually be forced back here again because the Government have insisted on acting without proper evidence or justification.

That said, the Government will clearly proceed as they choose tonight, but I fear that this is not the last we will hear on the subject.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

We expect the highest standards from our providers and have instructed them to make improvements following the interim report from the independent chief inspector. In future, a core part of avoiding the pressures that result in the need for contingency accommodation will be fixing our broken asylum system, so that decisions are fair, prompt and firmer, and those whose claims are not genuine can be removed more easily.

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

The Home Secretary said to the Select Committee that

“advice around dormitories and the use of the accommodation was all based on Public Health England advice”.

However, the inspection report reveals that Public Health England had advised that opening

“dormitory-style accommodation at Napier was not supported by current guidance”.

Ministers have claimed that the barracks are

“good enough for the armed services and they are certainly more than good enough for people…seeking asylum.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 10.]

However, the report says that they are “impoverished, run-down and unsuitable”. When will those statements be corrected, and, more importantly, why did the Home Office not grasp that the use of dormitory accommodation in the middle of a pandemic was utterly reckless?

[Kevin Foster]

I note the hon. Member’s points, but I have already outlined that we expect the highest standards from providers and have instructed them to make improvements. A core part of being able to end the use of contingency accommodation in hotels and barracks is having more options and locations for dispersed accommodation. Sadly, Glasgow is the only location currently providing it in Scotland. Part of the solution might be for his council in Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East to agree to be next on the list—something I hope he will reflect positively on.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

It is well and good for the Minister to ask providers to make improvements, but it is a blindingly obvious fact that whatever is done with dormitory accommodation will not protect against coronavirus. I agree that to fix asylum accommodation, local authorities must have the powers and the funding they need for the job. The Home Affairs Committee has said that several times. If the Home Office agrees to do that, instead of launching the horrendous large-scale warehousing of vulnerable people, more local authorities will get on board and I will, indeed, encourage it. Will the Home Office make sure local authorities get the powers and the funding they need?

Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

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

The repurposing of disused Army barracks to house asylum seekers is proving a disaster and a disgrace. What is worse, the leaked impact assessment shows that this dreadful policy was justified by wild notions that proper support and accommodation could undermine public confidence in the asylum system. In short, the Home Office was pandering to gutter politics. Will the Home Office apologise for suggesting that people in the UK oppose decent support and care for asylum seekers, and close these barracks urgently?

[Chris Philp]

No apology is due. As I just said, the barrack accommodation units in question were previously used by the brave men and women of our armed services. They were good enough for the armed services and they are certainly more than good enough for people who have arrived in this country seeking asylum. We fully comply with all the relevant guidelines.

On the hon. Gentleman’s question about this country’s stance on asylum seekers, we now spend getting on for £1 billion a year on accommodating them. That record bears comparison with any country in Europe and, indeed, around the world. No apology is due and certainly none will be made.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The sad fact is that the policy undermines the UK’s reputation as a welcoming place. Almost as bad as the impact assessment are the Home Office claims that people who criticise the use of barracks are insulting our armed forces: it is the Home Office that insults our soldiers by using them as cover for such disgraceful policies.

The former senior military legal adviser Lieutenant Colonel Mercer has agreed that it is “wholly inappropriate” to house asylum seekers in disused Army barracks, saying that

“this treatment is nothing more than naked hostility to very vulnerable people.”

If the Minister will not listen to me, will he listen to Lieutenant Colonel Mercer and a host of respected medical organisations and close the barracks quickly?

[Chris Philp]

The closure of the barracks would be made a lot easier if more councils in Scotland—other than only Glasgow—would accept dispersed accommodation. That is the sort of thing that puts pressure on our accommodation estate. Thanks to the generosity of our approach, the number of people we are accommodating has gone up from 48,000 to 61,000 during the pandemic, because we have taken a thoughtful and protective approach. That is the right thing to do and we stand by it.

Grooming Gangs

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the petitioners, and I thank the Petitions Committee for bringing this debate to the Chamber, as well as Members for making some very thoughtful and powerful contributions, many of which are based on years of experience in championing the rights of victims.

As the Home Office research we are debating states:

“Group-based CSE has been the subject of major investigations, attracting significant public concern and highlighting shocking state failures that have caused untold hurt to victims, their families and communities.”

That horrendous untold harm caused by these hideous crimes has been spread right across the towns and cities of the United Kingdom.

In relation to the specific petitions before us today, I will make three short points. First, research designed to provide a greater understanding of different types of offending behaviour is far from unusual. It can help inform policing and the wider Government response. The better we understand crime and criminals, the better, it is hoped, we can prevent these shocking crimes from happening in the first place, and that includes looking at what backgrounds offenders come from. All sorts of lessons can be learned not just for policing and criminal justice policy, but for wider social policy. However, as colleagues have rightly warned, great care must be taken in interpreting results and to prevent their being used by people who are determined to sow division, rather than to help victims.

We must also be careful that such research does not lead to counterproductive stereotypes. As the paper points out in relation to victims:

“Although awareness of vulnerability can be helpful, it can also contribute to stereotypes about what a victim of child sexual exploitation looks like, with the consequence that victims who differ from that picture are overlooked or unwilling to come forward in the belief that they will not be believed.”

In the same way, we should not fall into the trap of creating stereotypes of grooming gangs in case we fail to apprehend the ones that do not conform to it, or make it more difficult for their victims to feel confident about coming forward.

Secondly, on what the publication actually tells us, the review concludes that offenders are overwhelmingly male. There are some patterns for age and some limited patterns for social background. However, despite high-profile cases involving British Pakistani gangs, the fact is that there is no robust evidence on ethnicity:

“Based on the existing evidence…it seems most likely that the ethnicity of group-based CSE offenders is in line with CSA more generally and with the general population, with the majority of offenders being White.”

That is an important point, but as the report goes on to say

“this does not mean that cultural characteristics of offender groups are irrelevant or should be ignored by local agencies.”

Far from it: an approach to deterring, disrupting and preventing offending that recognises, acknowledges and takes account of the communities in which offending occurs is absolutely essential. We need such an approach, for example, to ensure all victims feel able to come forward and speak about what is happening to them, to identify suspicious patterns of behaviour or follow lines of inquiry, and to ask the questions that have to be asked and ask them of the right people. Too often in the past that just has not happened.

Thirdly, I hope the published report has been useful and has informed the new strategy. I do gently query with the Minister what exactly the Home Secretary seeks to achieve by apparently seeking yet more research on whether any particular group is over or under-represented among offenders, and how a more accurate picture can really be expected to emerge given the huge problems about reporting and classification. How will that change anything in Government strategy? Surely the most important point is that we have enough information to take action already, and the focus now must be on scrutiny of the new strategy—a welcome strategy—and of the co-ordinated and properly funded action that must follow in order to deliver justice.

Immigration Rules: Supported Accommodation

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. As he says, I think these proposals and this approach will command widespread public support. The public do not understand why people should cross the English channel in dangerous circumstances, facilitated by criminals, when they could perfectly easily claim asylum in France or somewhere else, which is of course what they should do. Characteristically, he makes an extremely pertinent and prescient point about the legal process, which the new Bill next year will most certainly address. At the moment, it is possible to bring a series of claims over a period of time—repetitively, sometimes vexatiously and sometimes even in contradiction with one another—with the express purpose in mind of preventing, frustrating or delaying the proper application of our immigration rules. We will be legislating to prevent that kind of abuse of the legal process, and I look forward to working with him on making that law a reality.

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

I thank the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for securing this urgent question. It seems to me that this is not about fixing the asylum system; rather, it is about blocking access to it, leaving people in limbo and undermining the refugee convention in doing so. The Minister has focused on the channel, but putting aside those crossing the channel, can he be clear on what percentage of asylum applicants the Department thinks is likely to be impacted by these inadmissibility rules and left in limbo? Can he be clearer on what statutory support and accommodation will be available to those who are put in that limbo situation? If this is really about replacing Dublin, surely we must wait to see what replacement agreements are concluded and what safeguards are in place before being asked to look at these changes.

Finally, if the Government are serious about fixing the asylum system, will they start by addressing yesterday’s news of 29 deaths in asylum accommodation this year alone? Can we have a clear Government commitment and published policy to record and investigate such deaths, to support the bereaved and to learn lessons so as to prevent further tragedies? Surely creating a legal limbo of several months will only make things worse, not better.

[Chris Philp]

First, as I have said, the people in this cohort will not be in limbo, because after a reasonable period, if no return to another country is possible, the asylum claim will be substantively considered here. The possibility of limbo that the hon. Gentleman referred to does not exist, as I have said twice already.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman raised the question of destitution. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), the people in this cohort will be eligible for accommodation and support, so the risk of destitution, which would be in contravention of article 3, does not exist either.

The hon. Gentleman asked about people crossing the channel and referenced the refugee convention. He will know that article 31 of the refugee convention talks about people

“coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened”

being immune to various forms of penalty. He will know that France is a safe country where people’s life and freedom are not threatened. Human rights are respected in France. Asylum claims can be processed in France and, indeed, in other countries through which this cohort typically pass prior to their arrival in France. That deals with the questions that he raised.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the very sad deaths in accommodation, every single one of which is, of course, a tragedy. I remind him that we have 60,000 people in asylum accommodation. While each individual case is very sad, if he studies the statistics he will see that the numbers are not out of line with what we would expect among a population of 60,000 people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is right: the Immigration Minister did have meetings. He will understand that the Government are rightly looking at and reviewing the needs of the agricultural sector and the seasonal agricultural workers pilot, which he and many other colleagues have made representations on. The Immigration Minister and I are working across Government to meet those needs while getting the balance right for future employment opportunities for British workers in our country.

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

  As alluded to earlier, the Home Office has just made some extraordinary immigration rule changes that are completely at odds with the refugee convention and could see almost every asylum seeker in the UK left in limbo or removed to a country they have never even been near. Why will someone in the Department not have the courage to make a full statement to the House, so that MPs can properly scrutinise these drastic changes before they come into force in January?

[Priti Patel]

It is absolutely right that we have made changes to our immigration rules. I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that when it comes to illegal migration and the issues that we face, too many people are putting their lives at risk by crossing the channel in unseaworthy vessels—and they are putting not only their lives at risk but the lives of Border Force officers as well. We are determined to make that route unviable, and these rule changes are part of that.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 (Consequential, Saving, Transitional and Transitory Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 General Committees

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

It would be good to rename my constituency for the benefit of colleagues, but it is good to see you in the Chair, Mrs Murray. I hope you can hear me okay. Colleagues might prefer not to hear me, but I will have my say anyway.

[Kevin Foster]

Always a pleasure.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Thank you, Minister.

I am grateful to the Minister for the way he introduced the regulations. I concur with 99% of what the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Halifax, had to say. It will be no surprise to the Minister that we, too, oppose the regulations. The SNP very much regrets the end of free movement. We believe that the hostile environment is a disaster. It is important to say that the regulations do not really end free movement; they are about extending the hostile environment. The two do not have to go together.

We have always argued for a declaratory scheme, and we maintain that that would have been a much better approach. However, there is no point going over all that old ground again. We have debated these points a million times and we are where we are. It is incumbent on us all to try to make the arrangements the Government have decided to put in place work as best we can.

When the Minister came before the Home Affairs Committee recently, I think it is fair to say that we had a fairly constructive exchange about how EEA citizens would be able to access the NHS and other public services in various hypothetical scenarios. In that vein, I want to probe him on another four brief scenarios. If he cannot answer the questions today, it would be useful to have the answers in writing. The shadow Minister said that these are very complicated regulations—I will come back to that point in a bit—and I genuinely do not know the answer to all these questions, despite my best efforts.

The first scenario is that in January—in the grace period, but after the transition period—two EEA nationals, an uncle and a niece, who could have applied to the settled status scheme but have not yet done so, go to rent a new property. The uncle is a worker, so his rights are protected by the grace period regulations, but the niece is not and does not have comprehensive sickness insurance. Arguably, she was therefore not exercising her treaty rights prior to the end of the transition period. As I understand it, that means she has no protection under the grace period regulations.

My first question is: is it the case that the worker—the uncle—would be able to rent, but not the niece? I understand that in the past, the Government have said, “We will not ask employers and landlords to make these checks,” but legally speaking, is it the case that the regulations would exclude the niece from the right to rent? Secondly, if they realised that they needed settled status and applied for it, would that situation remain the same, regardless of the fact of their application, until such time as a decision on the application was reached? Similarly, am I right in thinking that the uncle could access homelessness assistance, if he qualified for it—ironically he does not need to because he has the right to rent—whereas the niece could not access it, even though she is the one who would need it because she would struggle to access the right to rent?

The second scenario is the same as the first, except that it takes place in July, which is outside the grace period. In this case, as I understand it, neither the uncle nor the niece can rent or access housing assistance. Let us say that they can prove that they were negligently advised by lawyers that they did not need to apply for settlement because of a misunderstanding about nationality law—something I very much hope the Home Office would accept as a reasonable excuse for a late application. They make a late application, arguing that they have a reasonable excuse. Is it the case that while they wait for the application—even if it takes six week, eight weeks or two months—in the meantime neither of them would be able to rent and, similarly, they would not qualify for homelessness assistance?

Scenario three of four is the same as scenario two, but it is now July and one of the couple—the uncle and the niece—needs two small operations. They are not lifesaving, but they will fix some pretty serious pain. The first of the two operations happens just before they make the late application and it costs £10,000. The second happens after they make the application and it costs £15,000. Am I right in thinking that because of separate regulations made on 3 December—just last week—even the making of the late application means that the person continues to qualify for NHS treatment? Therefore, even while they could not rent or access homelessness assistance under the regulations that we are debating today, they could access the NHS.

If my understanding is right, why is there the inconsistency that while an application is outstanding, someone can get NHS treatment but not homelessness assistance? Is it not arguable that the regulations before us infringe the withdrawal agreement, particularly article 18(3), by not making a similar provision where a person has an outstanding late application? As I say, the Department of Health and Social Care published regulations last week that seemed to acknowledge that it has to give rights to those with outstanding applications, even if they are late; the Home Office does not appear to have recognised that.

Am I right in understanding that the £15,000 operation would not have to be paid for, because it happened while the application was outstanding? What about the £10,000 operation that happened just before the application went in? Even if the uncle and niece subsequently do get settled status, will they still be chased to pay the £10,000 for the operation that happened just before they submitted their application?

The fourth and final scenario again concerns a couple in a very similar position: they were badly advised and did not apply in time, so they have a reasonable excuse. Late next year, the Home Office charges them with illegal working. They apply in September for the settled status scheme and that is granted late. However, is it the case that the couple were, legally speaking—regardless of what practical answer the Home Office comes up with—guilty of a criminal offence from July, after the end of the grace period, until the application was decided? Because settled status is not retrospective, there would be a gap where they did not have status.

As I say, this is all very technical and I might have completely misunderstood some of the scenarios, but I have no doubt that we could go through every single one of the 60 or 70 regulations and conjure up scenarios that involve similar complications and technicalities. There are ways that the Home Office could make this easier. A declaratory scheme would be one, but putting that aside, there are things the Home Office should think about.

First, if a public body is approached by an EEA national without settled status and it appears that they could still apply for that settled status, perhaps we should put a duty on the public body to signpost them to the scheme. Rather than just saying, “You are not entitled to support,” there would be a duty on people to say, “Just now you are not entitled to support, but if you put in an application, you would be able to access it.” At the very least, I hope that is something the Home Office is encouraging of all people who are involved in checking immigration status, of whom there are many.

Secondly, if a person makes an application late—a situation I have alluded to—the Home Office should provide them with a certificate of application that makes it clear that they continue to be entitled to access support and all their rights while the application is outstanding. If there are clearly no reasonable grounds for the late application, the Home Office will be able to refuse immediately and no damage would be done. Otherwise, my view is that there is little to lose and much to gain from ensuring that they continue to be able to access all these rights while the application is outstanding. That seems to be the approach the Department of Health and Social Care has taken in the NHS regulations that were published last week, so I do not understand why that approach cannot be taken in the regulations before us today. It seems to me that that is arguably required by the withdrawal agreement.

Thirdly, if such a late application is successful, why do we not make settled status backdated so that there is not a break in the continuity of residence? When he was before the Home Affairs Committee, the Minister talked about how he was looking to ensure that that did not impact on nationality—for example, in the case of kids born during that period. I am aware that the Home Office is alive to this issue, but why not just make it retrospective in a blanket way, so that there is no gap in status?

I have one final request of the Minister. At the Home Affairs Committee, he was generous in agreeing to meet a couple of organisations. One to add to that list is the3million. It is a very sensible, pragmatic organisation. It accepts where we are at, and is just keen to work through all the scenarios and to work with the Government. If he is happy to meet it, that would be very helpful.

There are a million other issues I could raise today, such as access to national insurance numbers, which appears to be incredibly challenging for EU nationals.

I emphasise what the shadow Minister said about the complexity of the regulations. That is why we opposed the sweeping Henry VIII clauses when we debated the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020. It is why my party proposed an equivalent to the Social Security Advisory Committee. This issue is so technical that we need experts on housing law, marriage law, family law, social security law—it covers such a huge range of subjects. The regulations are much more detailed and technical than the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, yet we have 90 minutes to consider them, with no witnesses and no access to experts, whereas the Bill essentially went through Parliament twice and we had lots of expert evidence to help us.

I have tried my best to scrutinise the regulations. Indeed, I think there might be a typo in regulation 12, if the Minister wants to note it down. The placing of the quotation marks and the stray “(3)” to my mind means that part of that regulation has no effect or has the opposite effect of what was intended. That is why this sort of regulation, which has important consequences, needs line-by-line scrutiny. I think that there is a mistake, but I do not know how we fix it, because we cannot amend the regulations, unlike the Bill.

My final question is: why rush this? Much as I hate it, free movement is coming to an end. Even if the regulations—or 90% of the regulations—were not passed until late next year, free movement would still end; it would simply mean that all these aspects of the hostile environment would not be applied to EEA nationals. There could be mistakes in here and we need to think about it much more carefully. Again, I echo what the shadow Minister says: let’s put this off and do it properly. As MPs, let us do our job of scrutinising the proposals properly by withdrawing the regulations and bringing them back as a Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Foster]

I am sorry to hear that description of the EUSS that has already had 4.26 million applications. I give the hon. Gentleman a tip that it is about to hit another milestone in numbers of applications. We think that it is working fairly well. For most people, making an application is a 15-minute job at home, using a smartphone.

We want to take the lessons from how the EUSS has worked into the wider immigration system. Hon. Members may not have picked this up, but in the skilled worker route, an EEA national can use their smart phone from home to apply rather than making a trip to a visa application centre. Building on the experience of the EUSS, we have been able to provide secure identity checks from home. For obvious reasons, I will not go into all the details of what we do to verify identity, but this has been a real success and I am sorry to hear that description of it.

To reassure my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire, we will have a range of circumstances listed along non-exhaustive lines. The longer the delay, the more there is a chance that someone knows that they do not have entitlement under the withdrawal agreement, but is claiming that they do. We want decision-makers to have flexibility and to treat this as faces, not cases. There will be a list, but it is not exhaustive.

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East always makes well thought-through contributions, even though we have fundamental policy disagreements on this and a range of other issues. I will provide a detailed written response to him and the Committee, but I shall deal with a couple of points now. He mentioned two EEA nationals. Let us assume that they are in England, because as he will know the right to rent checks do not apply outside England. If they were renting before 30 June a landlord is perfectly entitled to accept an EEA passport or national identity card as proof that they meet the compliant environment checks. If anyone has concerns, they can regularise and make their application via the EUSS straight after. We will not be asking landlords to make retrospective checks if they have accepted an EEA passport or identity card, just as we would not expect employers on 1 July suddenly to check that every member of their staff has EUSS status. Up until that point, landlords and employers cannot insist on it, provided that someone has presented an appropriate document. They can, of course, use it and we are finding that it is very popular. Between April and June there were 400,000 checks under the new improved service, 100,000 of which were to look at EUSS status. Those who have it are already finding it a handy and convenient way of meeting the checks.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he will set these things out in writing, and I get that the Home Office is not requiring landlords and employers to do those checks. I would like clarity on this: is the Home Office saying to landlords, “You do not need to do that check even though in the niece scenario she does not have the right to rent?” I am concerned that there is a danger in saying to landlords, “You don’t need to worry about the fact that you are renting to someone who does not have the right to rent.” Given everything that we know about how the right to rent operates, is that not just going to ramp up professional indemnity, so that landlords will take the safe course and not touch these people with a barge pole?

[Kevin Foster]

My next point relates to that example. He gave a clear example of a worker here in accordance with the EEA regulations on free movement. His second example was of someone who did not have retained rights because they were not here in strict accordance with those regulations. As he will know, the criteria for the EUSS is not strict compliance with EEA free movement regulations – it is residence in the United Kingdom. He would support the notion that it would produce some harsh outcomes if we based it purely on the free movement regulations. The situation that he has described would be that of the landlord in England who is renting today. He is talking today about someone who is not here strictly in accordance with the free movement regulations and who does not have free movement rights to be retained at 11 pm on 31 December – although I accept that someone could get a job and create new free movement rights before 31 December. It would be exactly the same legal position in January. No one has fewer rights or less ability in January than they have at 11 pm on 31 December. However, beyond the transition period new free movement rights cannot be created. That is the core difference.

Moving on to what would be a reasonable excuse for a late application, on some of the finer points – for example, someone being badly advised – it would probably be better for clarity to respond to those in writing.

I met representatives of We Belong last week. It was a productive conversation and we look forward to taking forward some changes. The3million group is on some of the Home Office’s advisory panels that are regularly engaged at official level. Once we have published the new guidance on the next milestones for the EUSS – the late grounds guidance – we will review ministerial engagement with the groups. I will be looking to meet the3million group at that stage – although by then we may have hit another milestone in millions of applications. We very much welcome all the applications coming in. We genuinely welcome all groups that promote the message that it is time to get in applications. If people have any concerns about their position in the United Kingdom beyond 1 July next year, now is the time to get in their application. Support is available on the phone, online and through our grant-funded organisations if people have any queries or concerns, or genuinely need assistance with the application.

The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East said that it would be no surprise that, as a member of the Scottish National party, he will opposing the legislation. No, it is not. I recognise that the SNP has a long and fairly solid policy on free movement. I was slightly more surprised at the position being adopted by the Labour party, given that we are only a few days away from the anniversary of the general election, in which an inability to respect the referendum result became a decisive moment for many former Labour Members of Parliament. This SI is about ending the references to free movement in UK law. Free movement is ending. There will not be a reciprocal arrangement on the continent of Europe beyond the end of the transition period. We published a draft of this regulation while the Bill was being debated in the House in order to allow more time for scrutiny. We accepted that just publishing it under the usual SI rules would not be the best way of ensuring good scrutiny and debate. We do not imagine that some of the changes – for example, designating every registry office as a designated place – will be particularly controversial, given that it will make life easier for many non-EEA citizens to get married in the UK. It is a surprise to see the resistance to ending free movement, and to having a single immigration system that judges people by what they have to offer to the UK and their talents, not by where their passports were issued, continuing a year after the general election, but I am sure that it will be noted with interest across the now blue wall.

There are many areas of law to be changed. We joined the European Union – or the EEC as it was called then – in 1973. That means that, unsurprisingly, there is a large number of references across legislation to free movement. Any immigration law that has been passed since then by Governments of both colours will inevitably have referred to the fact that EU citizens had free movement rights. That free movement is coming to an end. That policy has been supported and it was clearly part of our manifesto commitment. In terms of the civil service rules, it is right that someone who works in the civil service has the appropriate immigration permission for the UK, as was of course covered by the withdrawal agreement. I want to reassure anyone who is working in the public service, who is an EEA national and who will inherently have free movement because they are working here, that the EUSS is there for them and we very much look forward to them making an application.

It is a surprise that, a year later, we are still hearing reasons from the Labour party why they do not support this core part of implementing the referendum result. I accept that other parties have a clear view on continuing freedom of movement, but I was not aware that the Labour party did: one day it argues that it does, and other days it argues that it does not. For this Government, the focus is on ensuring a functioning statute book, that we have an EUSS that is effective in protecting the rights of our friends and neighbours who have come to this country and who make a huge difference to it, and that we move forward and deliver our promises. Therefore, I ask the Committee to support the regulation.

Question put,