Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-09
Topic: Immigration
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 30 and to speak to Amendment 68. These probing amendments are about citizenship, and I am grateful to the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens—of which I am a patron—and Amnesty International UK for their help with them. I pay tribute to these organisations for all the work they have done to promote and protect children’s citizenship rights For technical reasons, the amendments relate solely to EEA and Swiss nationals, but the issues they raise echo concerns raised previously on a number of occasions in your Lordships’ House, particularly with regard to children’s citizenship rights. Children born in this country to parents settled here, or who have grown up here from a young age, are entitled to register as British citizens. A combination of factors, including exorbitant fees, lack of awareness of the need to register their right to citizenship and the difficulties faced by local authorities in assisting looked-after children to exercise the right, have resulted in thousands of children being denied that right to British citizenship One consequence of our leaving the EU is that many more children could be in this position. They are the children of EU nationals who were born or who have grown up in the UK from an early age; the Home Office appears to have ignored this group. In establishing the EUSS, it has done nothing to raise awareness of their citizenship rights or to encourage children and young people with these rights to exercise them. Instead, because the EUSS is free, there is a real danger that many of them will be encouraged to secure themselves immigration status and not confirm or register themselves as British citizens, which they may not realise is open to them and involves a fee of £1,012 In a High Court judgment in December last year—mentioned in the debate on an earlier amendment—that fee was deemed unlawful, as it was set without having regard to the best interests of the child. That decision is being appealed, but its reasoning is highly pertinent. In particular, it underlined the importance of citizenship In response to a similar set of amendments in the Commons Committee stage, the Immigration Minister argued that any child looked after by their local authority can apply for limited and indefinite leave to remain without having to pay a fee, and that citizenship itself "is not essential for any individual to work, live, study or access services in the UK." When he was urged not to pursue that line of argument by Stuart McDonald MP, he re-emphasised that citizenship "is not something that people need in order to access services."—[Official Report, Commons, Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill Committee, 16/6/20; cols. 208-09.] Does the Conservative Party really believe in such a transactional view of the significance of citizenship? In contrast, in 1981, during the passage of the British Nationality Act, which conferred the right to register as a citizen, it was emphasised that this was in part to ensure that the children concerned should have "as strong a sense of security as possible" Citizenship is about security, belonging, inclusion, integration and identity. Indeed, the High Court judgment cited the Secretary of State’s own guidance document, which states that: "Becoming a British citizen is a significant life event. Apart from allowing a child to apply for a British citizen passport, British citizenship gives them the opportunity to participate more fully in the life of their local community as they grow up." As noted on the earlier amendment, the High Court judgment referred to a "mass of evidence" that the inability to exercise their right to register as citizens because of the fee causes many children born in the UK to "feel alienated, excluded, isolated, second best, insecure and not fully assimilated into the culture and social fabric of the UK." Is this really what the Government want? Do we want many more children to feel this way in future? This false equation of immigration status with citizenship was one factor in the Windrush scandal. Please do not let us repeat it Amendment 30 addresses the impact of the fee level on registration. In her Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Wendy Williams notes that "there’s little evidence that the impact on people was effectively considered" when fees were increased significantly. Amendment 68 specifies that the level should not exceed the administrative cost, which according to the Home Office is currently £372—£640 less than the fee charged. The Home Office’s argument that such a mark-up on the fee is justified because it provides a "benefit" and because the Home Office needs the money to run a sustainable immigration and citizenship system—repeated by the Minister at Second Reading—is specious because we are talking about a citizenship right bestowed by Parliament, not a discretionary immigration status Amendment 68 also excludes from the fee any child who has been looked after by a local authority—a particularly marginalised group of children. There is no logic to local authorities having to pay these fees on behalf of these children as it simply involves a transfer of resources from local to central government. I believe some other noble Lords might say more about this. It also requires the Secretary of State to take steps to raise awareness of the right to register as a British citizen but I will not say more about that now as it is the main focus of Amendment 67, which will be debated on a later day Because of the restrictions created by the Bill’s Long Title, these are simply probing amendments. However, as I am sure the Minister realises, the more general question of the barriers to registering the right to British citizenship, particularly the level of the fee, is one that we will return to in this House time and again. Given the Home Office’s welcome readiness to accept the recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, and the dangers of now repeating some of the flaws it revealed, will it now think again? As a first step, will the Minister, on behalf of the Home Office, undertake to look again at the level of the fee, which even Sajid Javid, when Home Secretary, admitted was "huge"? I beg to move.