Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Lab)]

My Lords, it pains me to intervene to say that I think Ministers have got these changes wrong. It pains me even more to say that this is an all too common feature of Home Office decisions at the moment. I want to focus, as my noble friend Lady Royall did, on the provisions in these changes for students, and I do so, of course, as chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

The total ban brought in on students from four countries, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, not only removes opportunities from students severely affected by war and regimes in those nations—and let us not forget the impact on Afghan women students particularly—but diminishes the experience and opportunity to learn for British students too. Overseas students bring life and cultural difference to our universities, and we are infinitely the richer for it. Welcoming international students also represents a rather crucial bit of British soft power, and we should not forget that advantage either.

Why on earth is the Home Office deciding to remove any possibility for students from those countries to come here to the UK, even Chevening scholars, simply because a small number of those who have been here in the recent past have asked to stay? While I am at it, can I ask, as I have done before, why students cannot be removed entirely from the immigration figures? Students, by definition, are not immigrating—they are here for a temporary, defined period. The statistics are there to record permanent immigration. It is high time for the Home Office to think seriously about that change, and not the changes in front of us this evening.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with everything that has been said this evening. I do not remember a debate where that has been quite so true. I will jump from international students to the EU settlement scheme, quite briefly, as I know that the bulk of this debate has been on other matters.

First, however, the Immigration Rules represent an astonishing degree of executive power over substantive policy changes, surely not envisaged in the Immigration Act 1971, which conferred those powers. I am grateful to the Hansard Society podcast, which I listened to, about how this has grown. It is an incredible imperial edifice that is largely immune to parliamentary control or even scrutiny. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who reminded us that the other place has no scope to debate them at all, so this is the only place they get any airing. They are even below the level of secondary legislation, because all we can ask the Minister and the Home Office to do is think again—we can only regret, not negative these changes.

I want to raise the proposed changes to the Immigration Rules Appendix EU and ask a series of questions. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee regretted the lack of impact assessments. I think there were only two on the page on GOV.UK—there certainly is not one on the changes to Appendix EU—and I must admit that I find them difficult to understand.

In paragraph 5.54 of the Explanatory Memorandum, the Government suggest that they need to tackle

“identified abuse by EEA citizens sponsoring EUSS applications by those falsely claiming to be eligible family members”,

and that they will

“enable an EUSS application to be refused where it is more likely than not that … the person has assisted another person fraudulently to obtain … entry clearance”.

No assessment is available of this identified abuse or its scope, why these powers are necessary or how they will be exercised. If the Minister does not have time tonight then maybe he can write to me on this, but the Government say they want to extend

“the current provision allowing a non-EEA national applicant to use an expired biometric residence card as proof of their identity”.

I do not understand why the point about a “non-EEA national applicant” is in Appendix EU. Does it mean to the EU settlement scheme? It is not very clear.

There is the assertion in paragraph 5.55 that

“we continue to see attempted abuse of the EUSS family permit route”

and the Government want to bring in additional validity requirements. What is this attempted abuse? Can we have some evidence of what it is and what the scope is? The Government say they will

“require the applicant to provide evidence of the sponsor’s EUSS status”.

I am surprised that that is not already required. I do not understand why an applicant applying essentially for family reunion does not already have to provide evidence of the status of the person they want to join—the sponsor. That is really weird. They will also require the applicant to provide evidence or information to attest to the family relationship. I do not understand how anyone could make an application of this kind without already providing such evidence. Those are some of the issues raised for me by page 12 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which are pretty unclear and seem to provide lots of scope to the Government to do things on rather unclear grounds.

Finally, I highlight the fact that the organisation the3million, with which the Minister and I have had a lot of contact in the past few years, is sadly having to take legal action because the Government do not allow people who have applied for status under the EU settlement scheme and are waiting for a decision to come to the UK while that application is pending. There are probably about 75,000 people waiting for a decision on their application whom that is affecting, of whom 9,000 have been waiting for more than four years. Some are waiting for an administrative review; some are waiting for the outcome of an appeal. All together, we are talking about a not inconsiderable number of people.