New Clause 20 - References to justices of the peace in relation to Northern Ireland

Part of Nationality and Borders Bill – in the House of Commons at 6:30 pm on 7 December 2021.

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Photo of Meg Hillier Meg Hillier Chair, Public Accounts Committee, Chair, Public Accounts Committee 6:30, 7 December 2021

Before I speak to my new clause 9, I want to associate myself fully with the comments of Caroline Nokes. In normal times that might surprise people, but I think she put very eloquently the real challenges and issues of offshoring and pushing back.

New clause 9 calls on the Home Office to fill the gap between the digital-by-default proof of status under the EU settlement scheme and the reality of people’s lives. It is typical of the Home Office to have set up a system that does not understand the interactions that people will have to have while proving their status. I thank the Minister for speaking to me about this, and for his letter of today.

Let me give some facts. I represent over 10,000 EU citizens in Hackney South and Shoreditch; my right hon. Friend Ms Abbott represents many thousands more. In my constituency, they are 8.5% of the population. Some 60% of Roma people are unable to access digital proof, and there are other groups who have real problems with digital access. Let me mention just some of the cases in my case load. An EU citizen living in my constituency who visits France weekly for work is interrogated by Border Force every time she arrives back in the UK. Another constituent has parents in their 70s who struggle to understand the complex process of proving their status digitally. Another case involves a freelancer who has had to prove his identity to every new employer, which can be every five or six weeks. The website is sometimes down, and many employers just do not want to engage, so he has lost money.

Another constituent works for a charity working with the Roma; it gave the figure of 60% of Roma people finding it difficult to access digital proof. I thank the3million, which has written to me since I tabled the new clause and explained many of these situations, which I do not have time to go into, but I reiterate the concerns of my constituents.

I say to the Minister, whose job I did just over a decade ago, that we are not so far apart on this. I, too, support methods that take us away from the old Immigration and Nationality Directorate letters, which many of my constituents still come to surgeries with in their wallets, folded up until they are falling apart. They are not a great way of proving one’s status in the UK. People lose passports. There are gaps in the system. We have seen with the covid app how we can make a difference by combining digital and paper.