Draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2019

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 General Committees

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. It is good to be here with strength of numbers to put the case this morning. [Interruption.] Company is always welcome. I should say, by way of apology, that my Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe, is on two simultaneous Committees but will attend in a moment.

Reluctantly, I rise to oppose the draft order. I have never opposed any proscription application in the time I have done this job, but this is the first de-proscription that I have dealt with. Let me explain my logic.

The Minister is entirely right about the application of section 3(5) of the 2000 Act, and I have no doubt that he has applied it appropriately and carefully. The issue is about my having the appropriate information to scrutinise the draft order properly. Of course I would never expect any disclosures at the level of comments about specific intelligence, but I would have hoped for a higher level of disclosure than I have been privy to.

The shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), was sent a letter that stated:

“This decision is based on the lack of contemporary evidence of LIFG’s involvement in terrorist activity, as it is defunct. This in no way invalidates their previous proscription.”

Of course it is entirely correct that the decision will not invalidate the previous proscription, and the intelligence may well state that there is a lack of involvement in terrorist activity. Beyond that, however, I have very little to go on.

At present there is no annual review of proscribed organisations, although there have been arguments about that; Lord Anderson, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has often argued for it, and I have had the same discussion with the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace). That means that someone must have applied for the group to be de-proscribed, and it must have been someone within the organisation or affected by the proscription. There may be a very good reason why I do not know who that person is, but I stand here today not knowing who they are or why such a step might have been taken.

There is concern about what will happen if the organisation is reactivated. I entirely take the point that the intelligence picture may show that it is defunct at the moment, but surely if there is any possibility that it will be re-established, it would be better to leave it on the proscription register. On a further point, I have not seen anything about whether the organisation has frozen assets or what will happen to them in the event of de-proscription.

Finally, there was extensive media coverage back in 2017. For example, The Daily Telegraph printed claims on 24 May 2017 from a former Libyan security official that:

“Ramadan Abedi, the father of bomber Salman Abedi, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militant group founded in 1995 to pursue the violent overthrow of Gaddafi’s military dictatorship”.

The Guardian reported the same allegation on the same day. Of course, it may be that the organisation was defunct before that, and that Salman Abedi’s father was a member in the past, rather than at that time. However, I just do not know the precise situation.

I take this decision carefully, and my judgment is that I will divide the Committee on the order, simply because I do not feel that I have the level of information that I have had on previous proscription decisions to enable me to provide appropriate scrutiny of the decision.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. He was instrumental in the introduction and delivery of the Prevent duty, to the benefit of everybody. There is obviously work for us to do on extremism, including the unwanted growth in right-wing extremism, which we want to bring down. We are therefore always reviewing how the programmes work, to ensure that everybody is kept as safe as possible.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

International action is, of course, required to tackle terrorism. Paragraph 78 of the political declaration, as it stands, refers to a “balanced security partnership” after Brexit. But the reality is that, three years on, the Government are no further forward in agreeing the security treaty promised by the former Prime Minister and have not put forward any ideas about how to reconcile the UK’s position as an EU third country with the level of security co-operation that we have now. Given the continuing risk of no deal, is not the Government’s attitude to our future security arrangements little short of negligent?

[Brandon Lewis]

I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues did not vote for the programme motion the other day, so that we could actually have got on with the withdrawal agreement Bill, to get towards delivering on a deal with the EU and ensure that we get a good outcome. The Government’s work to prepare for no deal has continued, with meetings on a daily basis, to ensure that we are ready for when we leave. We have excellent agencies and good working across Europe—and, indeed, globally: the work we do for Interpol also plays an important part as we go forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Transparency is the best disinfectant in such cases, and the Government are working hard to improve the operation of Companies House to ensure that we get to the bottom of some of these spurious companies. We are also fully committed to the establishment of a public register of property ownership in the UK, and are working with overseas territories to ensure that similar registers are established to cover ownership there.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

As capital moves ever more easily, it is imperative that we look again at the very limited circumstances in which large financial actors can at present be held accountable before the law. The Minister mentioned corporations a moment ago, but the Government’s economic crime plan totally fails to take on the issue of corporate criminal liability, which we must consider. Here is a very simple question: what are the Government afraid of?

[Mr Wallace]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, I have been talking about that issue for a long time, and we have been working hard on it. “Failure to prevent” in relation to tax evasion is now being rolled out, and the National Security Council discussed the issue more than a year ago. The hon. Gentleman will, I hope, wait to see what happens, but we are determined to try to deal with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I will not get drawn into that. It is our responsibility as a Government and a Parliament to support the police in pushing the frontiers of what technology can do in law enforcement, but I come back to this fundamental point: we have to take the public with us, and that means the regulatory environment has to be fit for purpose.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the comments of the new independent reviewer of our counter-terror laws at the weekend about our police and security services using artificial intelligence and algorithms in detecting suspicious behaviour. He was speaking of a future like that in the film “Minority Report” where predictive technology drives everything. Is not the only way to establish the appropriate balance between liberty and security to create a new durable legislative framework that can be properly considered by this House? Why can he not commit to bringing that forward today?

[Mr Hurd]

I repeat that I am extremely aware of the need, as technology develops in this area and others, for there to be public confidence and trust in it, underpinned by a legislative and regulatory framework in which people have confidence. We feel that that legal framework is in place, but we are reviewing the oversight and regulatory framework in which this all sits, and that is a work of some urgency for me.

Telephone and Online Scams

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone, in the first debate back after the short recess. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) for raising this crucial issue and for his thoughtful and powerful speech, which made a compelling case for greater action by the Government on telephone and other types of scamming.

The scale of this problem is truly breathtaking. Age UK has estimated that up to 5 million people over the age of 65 believe they have been targeted by a scam. South Wales, the part of the country that my hon. Friend and I represent, is a hotspot for these issues. He was right to speak of his local trading standards team and South Wales police. I entirely concur with his comments and support what he says in respect not only of his local authority, but my local authority in Torfaen and Gwent police. There is no doubt that trading standards and other law enforcement agencies would be in a better position to tackle this issue if they had not been subjected to nine years of austerity and spending cuts.

I welcome the work of the joint fraud taskforce, which I look forward to hearing more about from the Minister in due course, and the ban on pension cold-calling that came into effect in January. However, I note that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said there was a “disjointed and ineffective” national strategy. Therein lies an enormous challenge for the Government in pulling together so many different aspects of a strategy and enforcing it around the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) spoke powerfully about the cases he has seen in his constituency office, and about a crucial issue that should not be missed in this debate: the future of bank branches. At the last general election, my hon. Friends and I stood on a manifesto that sought to change the framework of legal obligations to be considered when closure decisions come to the fore. Nobody is saying that there are not business cases. Footfall is of course important—nobody is denying that—but there are two things to consider. First, the wider social impact of closing branches is often missed. Secondly, if the current rate of branches disappearing from the high street continues, we will end up with deserts in different parts of the country because there are no branches nearby. The hon. Gentleman represents a very rural constituency where I am sure that would be a particular issue, but it applies across all parts of the country and is something that we really need to tackle.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke movingly about his constituent, a schoolteacher who clearly fell victim to a fraudster who was extremely credible, as I am afraid they too often are. The hon. Gentleman also highlighted a further issue, which I will come back to in a moment: once someone has fallen victim to a scam, what awareness is there of the remedy and the compensation that can subsequently be recovered? In some cases, it is sadly not.

The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) was absolutely right to highlight the increasing risk to vulnerable people. When we talk about some of the statistics on scams affecting people over 75—I will do so in a moment—we must not forget that anyone of any age can fall victim to such scams. She was right to point out the risk to young people from different types of online scams, including identity fraud, and the importance of being cautious about what is shared on social media and knowing how that information can be used by people who wish us harm.

In its most recent statistics on crime in England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics identifies a worrying trend in these types of cases. The number of fraud incidents, 3.6 million, was up 12% on the previous survey year, driven in part by a 27% rise in consumer and retail fraud. It is vulnerable people who are targeted. Age UK has identified that single older people are more likely to respond than married people, and half of all people over 75 live alone. In addition to that vulnerability, the people who perpetrate such crimes are becoming more menacing and sophisticated in how they set out to defraud people.

A number of aspects of this issue demonstrate the need for a laser-like focus from the Government. There is the classic lottery scam, where people are told that they have won something when they have not. There are Government scams, where groups essentially pretend to be the Government and use that badge of credibility to carry out their crime. There are also security scams, which were mentioned in earlier speeches, whereby people are contacted by someone pretending to be their bank or some other trusted source.

What are we to do? We have to raise awareness, but it has to be done in a robust, targeted and smart way. People who are victims of scams need to report them, and a number of the speeches picked out that it is often difficult. People perhaps feel embarrassed and do not want to say they have been a victim of this particular type of confidence trick. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore pointed out, that relates to how people are treated when they do speak up, and it is important that best practice on being sensitive to the relevant issues is spread among our police forces.

There are other, practical things that people can do. For example, the Royal Mail can stop unaddressed mailings in the post if people register for that service. There is also the issue of data protection, which is covered by both the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation. The Information Commissioner’s Office, to which I often direct constituents who are worried about what has happened to their data, is an oversight body. If people are concerned about the retention of their data, they should be encouraged to go to that scrutiny body.

The hon. Member for Strangford raised the question of what remedies there are when someone falls victim to one of these confidence tricks. There is the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and people often forget that credit companies are jointly and severally liable even if the breach or misrepresentation is by the person doing the selling. The Act applies only to sums between £100 and £30,000, but that is none the less one remedy. There is debit card chargeback and the authorised push payment voluntary code, to which the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referred. I praise the work of consumer groups on raising awareness of those remedies. It is something that we really need to focus on, so that people are aware that should they fall victim and lose substantial amounts of money—one of the cases mentioned in the debate involved around £50,000, which is a huge amount of money—there are routes they can go down to try to recoup at least some of their losses.

There was an excellent Library briefing for this debate, and I pay tribute to the Library staff who produced it. The Government really need to look at how they collect statistics in this area. Where they do collect statistics, is there a way of breaking them down into types of scams? Are they online or telephone scams? I have raised this point with Ministers before, and I appreciate that there is always a balance. They cannot collect every single statistic, but if statistics were collected on what the fastest-growing risk was, the Minister would be more able to target Government policy to reduce it.

It is crucial that we bring together a robust strategy all over the country. We need more resources for our law enforcement agencies, but they also need a consistent strategy that pushes back against the fraudsters who target our constituents. To use the words quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore, the victims might not “bang, bleed or shout,” but great misery is certainly caused to them by this crime. The Government have to rise to the challenge.

Rape Victims: Disclosure of Evidence

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. We all know how attached we, our friends and our children are to the mobile phone. It plays a fundamental role in our lives, and the prospect of being detached from it is genuinely alarming. I can give that undertaking. The police are aware of the need to minimise the length of time that a phone is taken away from someone. At the heart of my hon. Friend’s inquiry is a question about technology, the ability to process information quickly, the requirements of the criminal justice system and improvements to the disclosure process.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and I commend the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) for applying for it.

The latest Home Office figures show that the proportion of reported rapes reaching prosecution is now at 1.7%, which is an appalling statistic. The rate was at 1.9% in January, so clearly the situation is getting even worse. The Minister knows that the issue of disclosure in our criminal justice system has been a running sore for this Government, with hundreds of cases dropped on that basis, and it is not good enough.

The Minister must accept that the Government’s cuts to resources, to the police and to the Crown Prosecution Service have restricted the capacity of those organisations to investigate and sift evidence. The Government need to get disclosure right. Of course we need relevant evidence to be disclosed in all cases, but there is a big difference between that and those who make a complaint of rape having to open up their entire digital life to be picked over.

We cannot have a situation in which complainants are asked to sign consent forms authorising the investigation of their data without limit, with the case not being taken forward if they refuse. I heard what the Minister said about the language on the form itself but if, in practice, that means, “Give us your mobile phone or the case will be dropped,” that is no way to run any criminal investigation and it will deter victims even further from coming forward.

Given the level of concern that has been expressed today, can the Minister confirm that all complainants will be entitled to fully funded, independent legal advice before they sign these consent forms? Can he at least make that pledge today? When are the Government going to accept that more resources are needed for our police and our whole criminal justice system? When will the Minister finally get this issue of disclosure right and stop failing victims?

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Gentleman lets himself down by trying to make cheap political points on this issue, because we are talking about a very serious matter in our criminal justice system and its integrity. He and other Opposition Members know that the problem of disclosure has run for a very long time, going way back into the 1990s, and I would have hoped that there would be cross-party support for what is being done to make radical improvements to that process.

The hon. Gentleman will also know that one of the big game changers in recent decades has been the exponential growth in the volume of digital data and the challenge that that brings to the police. He continues to give the impression that what has been announced today is a new process, but the police have been taking and requesting access to mobile phones for some time. What today represents is a well-intentioned attempt by the police to bring together best practice in a national form so that there is consistent practice across the country and so that consent is as well informed as possible—that is the intention of this form.

Rwandan Genocide: Alleged Perpetrators

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend is a strong supporter of Rwanda and knows the country incredibly well. I respect many of his views on the country and on the need for action, but I have to say that I fundamentally disagree with his last point. The United Kingdom has not shielded these people. He will know that on 28 July 2017 the High Court ruled that they could not be extradited, for fear of not facing a fair trial. He will know and respect the difference between the Government, the police and the judiciary. He will know that we have to follow the rule of law and that ruling.

This Government, and previous Governments, have been committed to bringing people to trial, which is why he has raised this issue. We have spent £3 million trying to get the right outcome, but when the Court ruled that these individuals could not be extradited, the United Kingdom, under its genocide convention obligations and after requests from the Rwandan Government, took on the investigation itself. We went out to meet officials in Rwanda and to gather evidence there, and there is a live police investigation into a number of individuals in relation to potential war crimes. My right hon. Friend will also understand that, as this is a live police investigation, there is no more I can say on this matter, for fear of prejudicing a fair trial here or anywhere else, and that is where we have to leave it. Those are the facts we find before us.

The Government are not shielding any war criminals, and nor should we. We would not do that. We are doing our best. I have raised the issue with the counter-terrorism police, and they say that the timescale for these investigations is not 10 years but more like between three and five years. I can assure my right hon. Friend that if the police require more resource or if they come up against an obstacle relating to international relations, the Government are standing by to help, to expedite and to ensure that those suspected of war crimes face full justice, but there is absolutely no case that this Government or any previous Government have shielded them from any war crimes trials that they might face.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for applying for this urgent question on such an important matter, and I am grateful to you for granting it, Mr Speaker. The Rwandan genocide took place in 1994, and its recent 25-year anniversary was a haunting reminder of what happened. It was an atrocious act of violence, with hundreds of thousands of people being killed in just 100 days. That such a heinous act took place while the world stood by is a stain on the international community.

Allegations have been made against five individuals whose extradition to Rwanda was not granted by the High Court in 2017. I will not comment specifically on the individuals themselves. It has, however, been reported in the past couple of days that Scotland Yard received a referral from the Rwandan authorities in January 2018, and that Scotland Yard officers were sent to help with the investigation regarding those individuals, as the Minister has confirmed today.

It is right that these allegations are investigated in this country. We believe in a rules-based international order. If that is to mean anything, a crime against humanity must be considered as a crime against us all; no matter where in the world it takes place, all efforts must be made to pursue justice for victims. Although the Minister must be circumspect about what he says with an investigation ongoing, can he reassure the House that all necessary resources will be put at the disposal of the investigation, that all possible efforts to gather evidence will be made and that, although it will of course be complex, the investigation will be carried out carefully and as speedily as possible?

[Mr Wallace]

I can give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance. At the beginning of this year, I got an update from the counter-terrorism police about the conduct of any investigations relating to people from Rwanda. In fact, I briefed my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on that at about the same time to make sure he realised we are not forgetting this. We are not going to forget the genocide, and nor are we going to forget bringing those people to justice. I am very happy to keep the House posted, as we are allowed to. Nevertheless, with respect, we have to remember that this is a live police investigation and therefore all the safeguards apply.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am afraid that is simply not the case. I speak regularly to all the leaders of the regional counter-terrorism response and the serious organised crime response. The part of policing that currently gets increased funding around that speciality is organised crime and counter-terrorism. I am happy to visit with the hon. Gentleman the counter-terrorist unit in his part of the country, which does a first-class job. The problem is not access to that speciality but making sure that we cut off the future demand and threats. I urge him to come with me to visit his local unit, and we can discuss the Prevent programme together.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

May I add the congratulations of Members on the Opposition Benches to the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray)?

The Minister has spoken about having more money for counter-terrorism, but when an appalling terrorist attack occurs it draws in officers and resources from mainstream policing as well as specialist counter-terror officers. Surely he must accept that cutting more than 21,000 police officers since 2010 has diminished the Government’s capacity to keep people safe.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman will know that when police forces come under pressure—such as when they respond to a terrorist incident, to an incident such as Salisbury or, indeed, as in my constituency, to a process such as fracking—there is an extra grant for those police forces. We have refunded extra money to police forces in Dorset, London and Manchester, and we will continue to do so. That is why we have this pot in the Home Office: to make sure that we can flex as something happens. Police respond, and they then get back the money that they need.

Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend, as a New Zealander and a Brit, makes a valid point about the strength of the New Zealand nation. He makes the correct observation that the gun laws in this country make it much harder for people to acquire weapons that could wreak mass murder very quickly, as we have seen following the use of semi-automatic assault rifles in places such as New Zealand and the United States. That does not mean that we should ever stop ensuring that when such threats present themselves we put all our resource and, if necessary, our legislation behind making the restrictions that are needed.

Although many people have considered such attacks, they have been unsuccessful in this country because they have simply not been able to get their hands on the type of weapon system that we saw being deployed in New Zealand. Our law enforcement agencies will continue to target both the legal acquisition of weapons by unsuitable people and illegal acquisitions through smuggling, so that we can ensure that our places are safer.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, thank you for granting this urgent question, and it is a credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) that she applied for it. I join all Members in passing on condolences to the families and friends of those murdered in this heinous act of terror against people for no other reason than that they were Muslims. We send sympathies to the people of New Zealand, and to those affected by the incident in Surrey and the ongoing situation in Utrecht.

As the Leader of the Opposition has said, an attack on anyone at worship is an attack on all peoples of faith and non-believers too, as they go about their lawful, peaceful business. The harrowing live streaming of events in Christchurch, on the other side of the world, raises questions about the role of social media platforms in facilitating a growing extremism. Although a White Paper on online harm is of course welcome, does the Minister accept that asking online platforms to act is not enough and that we need a new regulator with strong powers to penalise them if they do not curb harmful content?

We must also ensure that our laws and policies are robust and up to date. Will the Minister clarify when the new Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation will be appointed and in post? Will he also confirm that lessons will be learned from both domestic and international experience in the forthcoming independent review of the Prevent programme?

I am not suggesting that any political perspective has a monopoly on virtue. Does the Minister agree that such vile acts of hatred show that we must all redouble our efforts to argue for a society of tolerance and respect?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman makes many points with which I agree. Tolerance, respect and the underpinning of the British values of democracy and the rule of law are vital in our society, and the more we teach our children about that and the more we clamp down on those who do not believe in that, the better a place we will be.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s questions about the to-be-appointed Prevent reviewer, I cannot speak for that person—

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I referred to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.

[Mr Wallace]

I will get to that, but the hon. Gentleman did mention the Prevent review. I want the person reviewing Prevent to be as free as possible to examine people’s views, perceptions and evidence, and I would like those who criticise Prevent the most to produce evidence rather than anecdotes. The Government will, of course, listen to whatever the review produces.

I turn to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. Hopefully, the appointment will happen in a matter of days or weeks. We are at an advanced stage in the selection process. Like the hon. Gentleman, I would like an appointment as soon as possible, because no Government benefit without an Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation.

On new regulations regarding online harm, I know that Opposition Members will be impatient, but they will have to wait for the publication of the online harms White Paper. The document will obviously examine regulation versus voluntary action, but I have said on the record several times that a voluntary system is not enough and that regulation or other methods of encouragement should be explored.

I have also been clear that many online companies are hugely profitable and global, so whatever regulation we explore will have to be deliverable. That is why I met representatives of the G7 in Toronto last year to discuss what the G7 can do collectively; why the Home Secretary attended the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, as did his predecessor, to ensure that countries around the world can get to grips with the problem; and why the European Union is taking forward plans to seek regulations in certain areas, especially the time in which content should be taken down.

If we are to deal with the problem, we must take a layered international approach to regulation—otherwise, companies will simply move their servers to escape their obligations. It is one thing to deal with the big companies that have a nexus here, but there are many tiny companies spreading hate around the world that may have servers in jurisdictions that we cannot reach. That is why we need an international consensus to deal with the challenge.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Tenth sitting)

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 5th March 2019 Public Bill Committees

We have seen a number of problems. Representatives from the3million have highlighted to me today their concern that the application process for settled status is not as simple as was promised. Too many—16%, I understand—of those who have engaged with it so far have faced demands for extra evidence, beyond the initial application, if no Revenue and Customs or Department for Work and Pensions data was available. Too many—30%, I understand—have been given not settled status but pre-settled status, although some of them have lived in the UK for more than five years.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentions that further evidence is being demanded. Is that not precisely what started to happen with the Windrush scandal, causing so many problems? Is that not why we need as many safeguards as possible in the scheme?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. With the history of the Windrush experience being so close, one would imagine that we would not yet have forgotten its lessons and would seek to apply them in this situation. We tabled the new clauses precisely because of that concern.

It is well known that other problems with the process include its inaccessibility to iPhone users. The Government talked about how easy this process would be—people would be able to do it on their phones—but that is not the case for half of the UK’s adults, who happen to use an iPhone. The inability to develop an app for use on an iPhone does not create a great deal of confidence in the rest of the process or the Home Office’s ability to handle it. People who already have proof of permanent residence are being asked to provide evidence of it, even though they were promised a simple swap to settled status. We need to have local support centres where people can apply offline, but they are not available.

The new clauses would remove the category of pre-settled status. This distinction, whereby an individual must be resident for five years to qualify for settled status, seems to be the result of a copy-and-paste exercise from the rules for permanent residence. A number of the stakeholders from whom the Committee took evidence do not see the rationale for it and believe that it serves no clear purpose. In fact, it creates more bureaucracy for individuals and the Home Office—this morning we discussed how difficult the Home Office sometimes finds it to deal with complicated or even simple procedures.

The Government have already admitted that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish easily between EU citizens who arrive before and after 29 March, which adds another layer of uncertainty. We can easily foresee the confusion for employers and landlords, who will wonder what different rights apply to the different categories, with detrimental effects for the holders of pre-settled status. I would welcome clarification from the Minister. If it is not simply to mirror the rules on permanent residence, can she explain the rationale for pre-settled status?

New clause 15 sets out other requirements, such as ensuring that applicants are issued with physical documentation of their proof of status. I acknowledge that this replicates new clause 35, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. It is another area where the Home Office will inevitably have to move. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and Professor Smismans vividly illustrated not only the administrative hassle of a digital system, but the potential implications for the treatment by what they describe as “private actors” and for

“equal access to work and housing.”

No other immigration status in this country operates exclusively digitally. The Government have said that they want this system to be more user-friendly than the current application process, but members of the3million group have made it absolutely clear that physical proof of their status would improve their experience of the system and provide some much-needed reassurance. I really do not understand why the Government are so resistant to that, and I urge the Minister to take the opportunity on this issue to work with, rather than against, EEA nationals and the people who speak for them. I imagine that this is an area that the Government will have to move on, as they did on the fee—many of us argued for it for a long time before the change was made.

New clause 15 would put on the face of the Bill the Government’s commitment not to levy a fee. For a long time, the Government were insistent on the need to charge £65 for an application. I am sure the Minister will embarrassingly recall that—in a written answer to me—she was not prepared to rule out the £65 fee for victims of modern slavery and trafficking at that stage. I am delighted that the Government moved on the issue. It might have been because of the embarrassment that, at one stage, the European Parliament was even considering covering the cost of the fees on behalf of EU nationals in this country. After campaigning by Opposition Members and other parties, along with the3million and trade unions, it was a good step that the Prime Minister conceded that the application should be free; therefore, the Government should have no issue putting that into the legislation.

New clause 16 details the rights of family members of EEA nationals who are eligible for settled status. New clause 18 would make it explicit that article 8 of schedule 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998—the right to respect for private and family life—applied to holders of settled status and of the work visa for EEA and Swiss nationals dealt with in new clause 21.

On new clause 17, the Government have repeatedly stated that there would be only three criteria for settled status: nationality of a relevant country or a family member, residence in the UK and a criminality check. The rules in the appendix of the Immigration Rules go beyond that; they leave a loophole where someone who is not a serious criminal and otherwise eligible could be denied settled status on the basis of non-exercise of treaty rights. New clause 17 seeks to address this issue. Following legal action from the JCWI, from whom we took evidence, the Government narrowed the rules, but the power still remains. In written answers to me, the Minister has stated:

“the UK has decided, as a matter of domestic policy, to be more generous than the draft Withdrawal Agreement in certain respects. In particular, those applying under the scheme will not be required to show that they meet all the requirements of current free movement rules, such as any requirement to have held comprehensive sickness insurance or generally to detail the exercise of specific rights under EU law, such as the right to work.”

The new clause would enshrine that policy in law.

If the Government do not accept new clause 17, could the Minister explain why they are so intent on wishing to retain a power that they never intend to use?