European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-01-14
Topic: Immigration
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it seems slightly odd that we launch into Committee at Clause 7 but that is the way it is. It comes at the beginning of Part 3 of the Bill, which is the extremely important part referring to the European citizens who now live and work among us and the question of what will happen to them when we leave the European Union. It is about settled status and the future of a very important part of our community This is the first time that the details and principles behind the settlement scheme have really come to Parliament. Before now, the matter has been dealt with through orders and regulations under the Immigration Act and by ministerial diktat. It is interesting that today the Law Commission is saying that the Immigration Rules are not fit for purpose and proposing that they have a thorough rewrite. Can the Minister tell us when the Government will respond to that and whether it is likely to happen? It would be very welcome indeed This is not a carefully honed amendment that can be fitted into the Bill; that will come in Amendments 2 and 3 tabled by my noble friend Lord Oates. It is a declamatory amendment; it states a principle and a promise made, which very large numbers of the people it affects—European citizens living here—believe has not been, and is not being, carried out in full Before the referendum, back in 2016, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Priti Patel issued a statement. It was not a government Statement, but they are now the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—who has been tasked with getting Brexit done—and the Home Secretary, so they are pretty important people in the present Government. The statement said: "There will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. These EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present." The words "automatically" and "no less favourably" are now in considerable doubt On television this morning, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was talking about really important things in relation to the Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben. He explained that "we need to restore the clapper in order to bong Big Ben on Brexit night, and that is expensive. The bongs cost £500,000 … but we are working up a plan so that people can bung a bob for a Big Ben bong." I had to read this carefully—and listen to it carefully on the BBC this lunchtime—to be quite sure of the last word. I am assured that it did end in a "g" and was not some other word which might have meant something different, and which I might have had difficulty saying in your Lordships’ House. Having said that "we need to restore the clapper in order to bong Big Ben on Brexit night" the Prime Minister continued that they "have not quite worked out how to do it." Yesterday at Second Reading, I said that people who have won the Brexit debate should not be triumphalist. People may be euphoric and have the kind of "paroxysms of joy" that the Prime Minister has described in the Sunday Times—the suggestion was that there would be a baby boom as a result of these paroxysms, which is why I wondered whether the word "bong" was right—but that will not do any good in bringing this country together and healing the serious wounds that have been, and continue to be, caused by the whole Brexit debate. Many people in this country, far from being full of paroxysms of joy, sexual or otherwise, are full of dismay and distress—