Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-28
Topic: Immigration
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I very much thank the Minister, who has taken a very welcome personal interest in this matter, which is very encouraging. The government amendments are interesting and represent some progress, but they are unspecific for EEA citizens, and there is still that discretion, not certainty, that the Secretary of State "may" but not "must" do this As I said in Committee, I was grateful for the concession, announced by the Minister and which she has just talked about, to the effect that the Government would "amend the Immigration Rules … to disapply any requirement for a Lounes dual national"— this area is littered with technical terminology— "to have held CSI in order to sponsor applications by relevant family members" for settlement. I would be very grateful, as we asked in Committee, to know whether there is any further knowledge of what progress there is on that change to the Immigration Rules. So far, so good—but on the other two arms of my amendment, on registration of children as British citizens and naturalisation as British for an EEA settled person, both without looking at past CSI history, as my amendment asked for, the Minister said in Committee that "it would not be right to single out EEA nationals", and she has repeated that. We are slightly in the same territory as we were on the Chagos amendments, whereby the Government say that they cannot do something specifically for this group. The Minister also said in Committee that "it would not be right to treat certain nationalities differently"—[Official Report, 1/2/22; col. 794-95] and she is maintaining this approach However, EEA nationals are being treated differently. They have resided previously in this country, often for a long time; a large chunk of an international treaty, the withdrawal agreement, is devoted to them and to their counterparts, British citizens in the EU, and legislation specifically covering them; and there are various arrangements for monitoring and supervising how they are treated. So they are a special case. I would just mention that some children who should have been born British were not, and now have to be registered at a cost of more than £1,000 because of the specifics of the situation of EEA nationals After the meeting of the UK-EU joint committee last week—the committee on the withdrawal agreement—Vice-President Šefčovič recalled that "it was a commitment from both of us that we will do our utmost for the UK nationals in the EU and the EU citizens staying in the UK." An EU official was reported as saying that the Commission would consider whether to launch consultations on citizens’ rights, and could ultimately trigger an arbitration process. I am not saying that those remarks were targeted at this specific problem, but that reminds us that there is an oversight mechanism for the fate of EEA citizens The CSI issue affects only EEA citizens, nobody else, so removing it entirely from being a virus—I called it "snakes and ladders"—in our immigration regime, would simply bring EEA citizens into line with all other migrants, who do not have a CSI problem. When Prime Minister, Theresa May said: "The requirement for comprehensive sickness insurance is an EU requirement, and as long as we are members of the EU, it will continue to be there. Once we leave, we can indeed remove it".—[Official Report, Commons, 26/6/2017; col. 315.] It is true that the Government removed it for applicants for settled status but, as I hope I have explained through the passage of this Bill, the problem is that it pops up later. You do not get rid of it; that is why I call it a virus. You do not get rid of it—it sort of comes back What is not to like about removing red tape? I suggest that while the new government amendments represent some progress—again, I thank the Minister—they still rest on discretion and do not treat EEA citizens on the fair, legally secure basis that I believe they deserve under the withdrawal agreement. I hope that the Government can do more and ward off any possible action from the European Commission and enforce a slightly more secure basis If I cannot get what I really want—acceptance of my amendment—I ask the Minister to confirm at least that, when implemented, the guidance will be updated to always state that the Secretary of State will always exercise her discretion in favour of applicants by not inquiring as to whether they had CSI and by treating self-sufficient persons, students and their family members as not having breached immigration laws. That should be in guidance as a firm commitment. Otherwise, I would like to hear the Minister further.