European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting
Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

I am coming to a conclusion, so I wonder whether the Minister wants to intervene on the point I made to him. [Interruption.] He is going to come back later in the debate, and that is fine. My concluding point is simply that the Committee needs to be mindful that the rights and position of 5 million citizens are at risk over Brexit—those in this country and those British in Europe—so it is essential that we get this process right. Our proposals would ensure that every eligible EU citizen and family member automatically has the right to stay here, which the Government are not providing for in this Bill. We would put their right to appeal in law and ensure that the IMA can properly hold the Government to account. We hope that the House will support us on new clause 5 and we ask the Government to look seriously at the other issues we have raised.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak in support of clause 7 and part 3, and I support all the comments made by the Minister. When I served as a Minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union, I was responsible for drafting much of the Bill, and I am glad that a lot of it has survived my absence from the Government. I pay tribute to the Front-Bench team, to parliamentary counsel and to the officials for the drafting of a complex and critical piece of legislation. In preparing the Bill, we conducted considerable engagement with the charitable sector, representatives of EU citizens and the legal sector to identify their concerns so that we could design a new framework that would not only command their confidence but, above all, work.

I should say at the outset that with Brexit, free movement will obviously come to an end. That is one reason many people voted to leave the European Union, myself included. I am the child of immigrants, yet I do not have a problem with saying that it is right that our democratic institutions, our UK Government and the British people have control over migration, not Brussels, the EU Commission or the EU Parliament. Everyone in the House should welcome that fundamental aspect of the EU Brexit project if we are truly to reflect the desires and needs of those who send us here.

With the ending of the free movement of people, I do not think we can be in any doubt about the Government’s commitment to safeguarding the position and rights of the 3 million or so EU citizens who are already living and working here. We want them to stay, as has been said so many times; we value their immense contribution; and we want to make Brexit as easy as possible for them.

I am glad about the proposals that provide for the legal rights of EU citizens, their access to healthcare and social security, recognition of their professional qualifications, and their employment and equalities rights. The Bill will enable them to continue to live their lives as they do now. It is this Bill that provides for the groundbreaking Independent Monitoring Authority, which is a hugely important proposal that will reflect our watertight commitment to EU citizens.

First, the scheme is working. The Minister himself has overseen the roll-out of the settled status scheme for years now. As of October 2019, more than 1 million people had been granted settled or pre-settled status under the EU settlement scheme. That milestone came four months after the scheme fully launched in March last year. That is an excellent start, and I pay tribute to the Home Office and all those involved in such an immense administrative task.

Secondly, the scheme is working because it is practical and user friendly. The EU settlement scheme is designed to make it straightforward for EU citizens and their families to stay in the UK after Brexit. They need only to complete three key steps: prove their identity, show that they live in the UK and declare any criminal convictions. A wide range of support is available for EU citizens and their families, including a dedicated settlement resolution centre and 300 assisted digital locations to support those who have limited access to IT, and the Home Office funds a plethora of organisations to help those citizens who are more vulnerable—the homeless, the disabled and the elderly—to navigate the system.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady can do something that the Minister could not. During her time in government, did she see an estimate of the number of EU citizens who, perhaps accidentally or because they did not fully understand their own immigration situation, will have failed to apply for the scheme by the deadline? Was I right to suggest that it will be hundreds of thousands? What should happen to them?

[Suella Braverman]

I will come back to that point, but of course any system will have the challenge of reaching everybody affected by it. That is why the Government have not held back at all in coming forward with outreach, engagement and the publicity and advertising campaign, and with the resources made available to the millions of EU citizens who are affected. We need only look at the numbers to see that the uptake rate is so far very encouraging. We should judge it on the evidence, not fear speculative future possibilities.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I accept all that, just as the Opposition spokesperson accepted all that—in general, all is going well—but the difference between us is on the consequences of not applying. Under our system, people could still apply for years to come; under the Government’s proposed system they will not be able to. Overnight, there will be tens—probably hundreds—of thousands of people without status. How many people do the Government expect to be in that situation, and what should happen to them?

[Suella Braverman]

It is important for any system to have robust deadlines and to have consequences if deadlines are not met. Importantly, though, there is a grace period in the legislation that allows considerably for people being late or delayed in making their application. That strikes the right balance by ensuring robustness but making allowances for those who might not get there in time.

Thirdly, we know that the system is working because EU citizens and those who work for them have told us so. Charities such as the East European Resource Centre and the Refugee and Migrant Centre, which receives Home Office funding and has helped thousands of EU citizens and their families, have welcomed the operation of the scheme so far.

Lastly, the significance of the Independent Monitoring Authority cannot be diminished. It represents not just the legal protections that are offered and provided for in the Bill, but a cultural change at the Home Office and in Government towards migrants. It represents a culture of protection and safeguarding and of enabling people to know their rights and exercise them.

Much has been said about avoiding the mistakes of Windrush, and I can see exactly why people fear history repeating itself. My parents emigrated to this country from Commonwealth countries at the same time as the Windrush generation and could have easily been caught up in the mistakes and consequent problems. When I was a barrister, I did a lot of work in immigration law, representing the Government in the High Court and in immigration tribunals. Of course, any large administrative exercise of this scale can be vulnerable to mistakes. This policy area is heavily legislated for and therefore very complex. Mistakes are made, but there is also abuse of the rules.

Any system must be light-touch and pragmatic enough to minimise the burdens on those who are directly affected and those who have to go through the system, but at the same time robust enough and sound enough to prevent such abuse. It is okay to live in an ideal world and assume that there is no abuse of immigration rules, but, unfortunately, the reality—the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) will know this from his experience in the sector—is that there is abuse. In recent times, we have faced unsubstantiated claims and unjustified appeals, and thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been used to perpetuate pointless and vexatious claims through the immigration system and the High Court.

The Government are highly cognisant of their obligations to EU citizens. It has to be said that even without the IMA there would be many avenues of legal redress for EU citizens—appeal rights and judicial review are enshrined not only in the Bill, but in common law—but the Government have gone further. They are committing to setting up an independent watchdog specifically—exclusively—for EU citizens to monitor the application of the rules, carry out inquiries, take up judicial review and represent EU citizens, be their collective voice and ensure that mistakes are remedied swiftly. It will be thanks to the IMA that a Windrush-type scandal will be avoided, EU citizens will have a voice and the system will improve and serve people. That is a step change—a sign of the political will to get it right and drive forward change.

Leaving the European Union presents us with myriad opportunities to take back democratic control of our migration policy—something that we should welcome and see as an opportunity for our country. I commend the Bill and the measures on EU citizens to the Committee.