European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-30
Topic: Immigration
Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, as has just been said, the price of the Government’s failure to accept the advice of this House and its EU Committee to offer a unilateral guarantee to the 5 million affected citizens is being paid by those citizens in anxiety, distress and distrust. As a result of taking the bargaining chip approach mentioned by several noble Lords, rather than a simple, light-touch, declaratory procedure, there are mounting concerns about the process, not least in the light of the Windrush scandal. There may be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in that group, but there are 3.5 million EU and EEA citizens here and 1.5 million UK citizens in the EU 27, so altogether that is 5 million people. What assurances can the Government give about the staffing and capacity of the relevant section of the Home Office that will deal with the settled status application process and about the testing plans? Those of us affected by the TSB fiasco are very conscious of the need for good testing and communication plans for customers My noble friend mentioned what is apparently the current plan, which means that people will not be able to apply online from Apple devices, such as iPhones, only from Android devices. Apparently Home Office officials told MEPs last week that people could borrow their friends’ Android devices to complete the process. That seems a little bizarre. Will an offline process be available for people without digital skills or access to computers? What are the plans for communications, appeal and redress? We know that the draft withdrawal agreement requires independent oversight of the process, but can the Government give us more of an idea of the practicalities and of how they plan to make sure that vulnerable people are not excluded? A report last week from the Migration Observatory expressed concern about people potentially being excluded. The Government have been ruled to be acting illegally in trying to deport rough sleepers, who are not necessarily in breach of EU free movement law. Is everybody to be included? Have the Government set a cost? Today’s letter from the representative of the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, to the incoming Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, says that the European Parliament expects there to be a cost-free process for applicants and raises other systems issues. He also raises the crucial issue of the need for full rights under the new EU data protection law—the GDPR—to apply, not the Government’s planned exemption. Without these rights, if something goes wrong, people will not be able to find out and get their data corrected. That is a cause that these Benches have championed, and we look forward to others coming on board with that demand Can the Government clear up something that has been bothering me? What exactly are they saying about comprehensive sickness insurance? We have had evidence, and this has been said by Ministers in public, that there will be no need to demonstrate the holding of comprehensive sickness insurance as part of the application process for settled status, but the draft withdrawal agreement seems to imply that there will still be a requirement to hold it. So is there a difference between having to hold comprehensive sickness insurance and having to demonstrate it as an evidential requirement? Could the Government clarify exactly what will happen to people who in the past were told they needed CSI? What happens in the application process Could the Government clarify the omission from the draft withdrawal agreement of free-movement rights among the EU 27 for Brits who are settled in one of the member states? There is huge concern, particularly among people whose job requires them to move around. I see the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in his place. He and I have depended in the past, as Members of the European Parliament, on the skills of freelance interpreters and translators. Not only do they move around between Brussels and Strasbourg but they might work for other international organisations or businesses, so they live in one member state but travel all over the EU. They need the right to work across borders within the EU 27. What exactly accounts for the gap in the withdrawal agreement We do not know what will happen about post-Brexit immigration but it looks as though it will be very similar to EU free movement, except with a lot more red tape, bureaucracy and cost, and less freedom. That is not a terribly good bargain. We are suffering a lot in the process of the Government’s Brexit demands on citizens, and I ask for some answers.