Northern Ireland
Debate between Paul Blomfield and Brandon Lewis(3 years ago)
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Brandon Lewis
Yes, I understand the point the hon. Gentleman was making. He referenced a few of the things I outlined in my opening remarks about the challenges, the straw that broke the camel’s back and the issues around the protocol earlier this year. That is why we took unilateral action a few weeks ago, which he supported. We have been clear that we will take the action needed to make sure this works for Northern Ireland. Our focus is on working through the proper channels with our friends and partners in the EU to get an agreeable solution that works for those EU friends and partners we trade with as well as people across the United Kingdom, and enables the GB-NI trade that we all want to take place.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]
As the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said, the protocol is at the heart of this issue. The Secretary of State knows that there were only three options: all-UK alignment with the customs union and the single market, a land border between north and south, or a border in the Irish sea. The Prime Minister chose the sea border, but then he promised that it would not involve the checks that he signed up to in the protocol. I think he either did not understand the agreement he signed, or did not care about telling the truth. Which was it?
Brandon Lewis
Given that this was outlined earlier today, it is interesting that Opposition Members continue to want to talk about nothing else but leaving the EU. I think that highlights their lack of connection with people who want to move forward.
As we have said, we want to make sure that the arrangements work for the people of Northern Ireland. It is clear—it is one of the things the Prime Minister has consistently outlined—that the protocol is there for the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland. It is there because it recognises that the EU wants to protect its single market. We respect that position. That is about protecting the EU goods from goods that move through Northern Ireland and into the Republic of Ireland, and therefore the EU. We are determined to deliver on all strands of the Good Friday agreement, not just one of them, and that means recognising, as the protocol itself says, that not only will it not disrupt the everyday lives of people and communities, but respect and recognise the integrity of the market of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is an integral and fixed part of the United Kingdom customs territory. We are determined to ensure that it remains so and to get trade flows moving freely. We recognise the EU’s desire to make sure that goods moving into the EU via the Republic of Ireland are properly dealt with, but that is very different from the challenges we are seeing for all the goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. We have been clear that we will fix that.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill
Debate between Paul Blomfield and Brandon LewisTuesday 7th January 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 7 January 2020 - (7 Jan 2020)
Brandon Lewis
New clause 18, as drafted, would discriminate by nationality because, as I said, it would give EU citizens preferential fees for citizenship.
My next sentence would have negated the need for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because I was about to say that new clause 18 would also undermine the legislative structure that is already in place. This Bill is not the place to set fees, including specific fee exceptions, as that is done in different legislation.
Part 2 of the Bill honours our obligation to EU citizens who are living in the UK by ensuring they have the certainty they need as our country moves forward. Frankly, it is disappointing that not all European countries have provided the same assurances to British nationals living in the EU, which is something we hope will change. We will continue to work towards that for our citizens.
This Government have always put citizens’ rights first and foremost, and we will continue to do so. EU citizens are our friends, our family members and our colleagues. They have made and continue to make a hugely important contribution to our country, our economy, our communities and our society, and we want them to stay. This Bill will ensure we can deliver that unequivocal guarantee, both now and in the future.
Paul Blomfield
I rise to speak to new clause 5 on the system for providing settled status, on which we will be seeking a vote, and to amendments 2, 3, 20 and 21 on the right of appeal, as well as amendment 37 on the Independent Monitoring Authority.
I regret the Minister’s combative response to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), who made a typically thoughtful and considered contribution that did not reflect division across the Committee because, when these issues have previously been debated in Parliament, considerable concern has been expressed on both sides about the consequences of getting this wrong. If we do get it wrong, it will have a significant impact not only on EU citizens in the UK and on Brits in Europe but, frankly, on our caseload as Members of Parliament.
I believe it is possible to reach agreement on some of these issues, and it is in that spirit that I address our amendments. On new clause 5, the Minister said that providing certainty for EU citizens is central to the Government’s agenda. The Prime Minister said:
“under this Government they”—
EU citizens—
“will have the absolute certainty of the right to live and remain.”—[Official Report, 25 July 2019; Vol. 663, c. 1459.]
That seems clear, but the reality of applying for settled status is different. It is a constitutive system in which EU citizens acquire settled status or pre-settled status only by successfully applying for their right to live and work in the UK post Brexit. New clause 5 seeks to avoid that by making the scheme declaratory, meaning that EU citizens and family members who meet the eligibility criteria would automatically have the right to continue to live and work in the UK and would simply need to register for the purpose of proving their status.
We believe our approach would avoid a repeat of Windrush. The Minister suggested that the Government’s objective is to avoid such a Windrush situation and that a declaratory system could encourage a repeat. The Windrush scandal was caused by a number of factors: the changing legal environment for people who had lived here for decades; the 2012 introduction of the hostile environment; the lack of record keeping by the Home Office both under this Government and when we were in power—I am not trying to score party points; and by Home Office staff being incentivised by targets and bonuses to reach deportation targets. But for the Windrush victims, crucially, there was at least the legal safety net of the Immigration Act 1971, so they could seek recourse against their treatment.
What the Government are saying is that making the EU settlement scheme declaratory would create a second Windrush. They are perversely blaming the scandal—it was a scandal, as the Minister recognises—on that safety net, which is a fundamental misunderstanding. They are saying that the way to avoid another Windrush is to remove the safety net that the Windrush victims faced.
No system will get 100% of those eligible to apply, and I recognise the Minister’s point about the Government’s efforts to ensure that as many apply as possible. I take his point that 2.8 million have already done so, and I am sure many more will apply by the deadline of June 2021, but not everybody will. The Government do not even have a target for how many people they think should be eligible to apply. If only 3% of the estimated 3.5 million EU nationals living in Britain fail to apply, which is not beyond the bounds of possibility, it will leave 100,000 people facing a hostile environment and facing possible deportation. I have talked to many EU citizens who, despite all the Government’s publicity efforts, are unaware that the rights they have enjoyed for 30 years need to be applied for, and I have had to explain to them about how to apply for settled status. The Government have recognised that, as has the Minister. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, he said:
“If EU citizens have not registered”
by the deadline for settled status
“without an adequate justification, the immigration rules will apply,”
When pressed on whether that would mean deportation, he said:
“Theoretically, yes, we will apply the…rules.”
The possibility of people whom we describe as our neighbours, friends, taxpayers and colleagues being deported exists while we pursue the same approach to settled status as the Government are now.
It is not too late to correct course. In our view, and that of others proposing similar amendments, a declaratory system is the only way to prevent hundreds of thousands of people from potentially being criminalised and deported. Under a declaratory scheme, if somebody does not register for settled status before June 2021, they will not lose rights; they will simply need to register for the Government to provide them with the proof of their status.
Paul Blomfield
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that there would be every incentive to apply, because without the proof these people will not be able to exercise their rights. We are simply seeking to ensure, through our new clause, that they do not lose their rights. The approach we are suggesting is explicitly allowed under the withdrawal agreement. The Government had a choice about what kind of system they would implement and, in our view, they chose wrong. We need to remember that this is not just about EU citizens in the UK; the largest national group affected by Brexit are the 1.2 million British citizens in Europe. The EU and the individual member states, not all of which have met our expectations, have been clear that rights granted to UK citizens will be based on reciprocity. The Minister is right to want to see other countries stepping up to the mark, but that will not be assisted if we reduce rights of citizens within the UK, because that will risk a reduction of rights of citizens across the EU27. So a declaratory scheme for EU citizens will be good not only for those here, but for UK citizens living in Europe.
I wish to move on to another aspect of the problems with the settlement scheme. The Minister said that 2.8 million have applied and he went on, unintentionally, I am sure, to give the wrong impression about the granting of status, because he said that 2.5 million had been granted status—that is correct, but it is not the status they had applied for. The most recent statistics show that almost half of the applicants for settled status are being granted pre-settled status, which comes with substantially fewer rights; it is a temporary form of leave lasting up to five years—[Interruption.] It is not indefinite leave to remain.
Paul Blomfield
In a moment, I will ask the Minister to come back on me on some of these points and he might want to respond on that. In addition to the cliff edge at the end of 2021, when anyone who has not applied to the settlement scheme will face possible deportation, pre-settled status creates hundreds of thousands of individual cliff edges when people come to the point of confirming their individual position, because it does not provide—[Interruption.] I see my friend and former Committee colleague the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) looking puzzled about that, but if pre-settled status does not provide a permanent right to remain, that is granted only at the point at which settled status is gained. We are creating hundreds of thousands of individual cliff edges.
The campaign group the3million has shared one case with me that illustrates many of the problems with settled status. It involves an older Dutch woman who has been living in the UK for decades. Despite her living at the same address for more than 30 years, and paying council tax, income tax and NI, the online system could not find a trace of her, so she was forced to trawl through paperwork to provide evidence of seven years of residency. For some of those years she had saved council tax bills, but she had to find at least six bank statements for each of the other years. She then faced huge difficulties scanning and uploading the documents. After she had eventually sent them off, she waited several weeks for a response, only to be told that the Home Office required more evidence. After another difficult process of finding and submitting documents, she was finally granted settled status, but this woman has said that she could not have done it without help, and her journey shows that although the app may be simple for the most straightforward of cases, as soon as somebody faces difficulties, it can be immensely difficult to resolve them and secure the right status.
Brandon Lewis
No, I will not be giving way at the moment.
The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) said that the whole process is different from previous systems. We are looking to grant status. I give great credit to the superb team of Home Office civil servants, particularly in Liverpool, who have delivered this scheme—a scheme that, as the hon. Gentleman said, is unprecedented in now having taken more than 2.8 million applications and processed some 2.5 million of them. To be clear with colleagues, of the almost 2.5 million applications that have been processed, I can confirm that only five have been refused—all on grounds of serious criminality. It is right that we do those checks and ensure that there is proper evidence.
Let me go a bit further in response to the comments of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central regarding the difference between pre-settled status and settled status. What he said at the Dispatch Box risks creating a scaremongering regime that has been portrayed in a couple of other speeches this evening. Pre-settled status is a pathway to settled status, ensuring that people who have lived in this country for five years or more have their rights fully secured. There is no cliff edge. When somebody has lived in this country for five years or more, having got pre-settled status, they can move straight to full settled status; their rights will be the same. They will be protected from the moment they have pre-settled status, and the evidence is an important part of that.
The hon. Gentleman asked a very specific question about appeal rights. Yes, appeal rights apply to all cases under the new settlement scheme. That also goes to the point raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine). My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman) is absolutely right: we are determined to make sure that we are delivering on the rights of EU citizens and that we in this country play our part in delivering on the promises we made.
Paul Blomfield
When the Minister says that this will apply to all citizens, does he include those who came under the Zambrano and Surinder Singh routes?