Written statements on Immigration - Dec 20

Immigration

Caroline Nokes (The Minister of State for Immigration): The Government remains committed to relocating the specified number of 480 unaccompanied children to the United Kingdom under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, commonly known as the ‘Dubs amendment’. The first 220 of those children arrived under exceptional circumstances as part of the UK’s comprehensive support to the clearance of the Calais camp from October 2016. During this time this Government took unprecedented action to remove vulnerable children from a dangerous situation where they were at risk of violence and abuse.

Following discussion with delivery partners, we have decided to remove the date criterion for when children had to have arrived in Europe to qualify for transfer to the UK. Delivering section 67 in a safe way, which respects individual States’ national laws and the best interests of children, remains a priority for the Government.

This decision means that participating States – France, Greece and Italy – will now be able to refer the most vulnerable children, regardless of when they arrived into Europe. To be eligible for the scheme, it must be in the child’s best interests to come to the UK, rather than to remain in their current host country, be transferred to another EU Member State or to be reunited with family outside of Europe. We continue to ask participating States to prioritise unaccompanied children who are most likely to be granted refugee status and/or are the most vulnerable.

It is this Government’s hope that removing the date criterion will speed up transfers and will enable participating States to more easily identify children for transfer as soon as possible. We are grateful for the ongoing support to meet this commitment from the Governments of participating States, delivery partners and UK local authorities. Ensuring the safe relocation of children under the scheme as soon as possible is dependent on appropriate care placements being available for children once they arrive in the UK. The Home Office continues to work closely with local authorities across the UK to place children as quickly as possible and in a location where their individual care needs can be met.

Immigration Rules

Caroline Nokes (The Minister of State for Immigration): My right hon Friend the Home Secretary is today laying before Parliament a Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules [HC 1849], copies of which are available in the Vote Office. The changes implement the next phase of the roll-out of the EU Settlement Scheme, for resident EU citizens and their family members to obtain UK immigration status. The Immigration Rules for the scheme came into force on 28 August 2018, for the purposes of an initial private beta test phase, involving 12 NHS Trusts and three universities in north-west England. This successfully proved some key elements of the scheme in a live environment, and we published a report on its findings on 31 October 2018.

A second, expanded private beta phase began from 1 November 2018 and will end on 21 December 2018. This has tested the online application process as an integrated, end-to-end process. It has been available, on a voluntary basis, to staff in the higher education, health and social care sectors across the UK, and to some vulnerable individuals, being supported by a small number of local authorities and community groups, in order to test the operation of the scheme for those with support needs.

We will publish a full report on the second private beta phase in January 2019. However, the initial findings from this phase have been positive. By 13 December 2018, more than 15,500 applications had been made and more than 12,400 of these had been concluded, enabling the new system and applicant interaction with it to be tested at scale. 71 per cent of the concluded applications were granted settled status, with the rest granted pre-settled status, and many received their decision within 24 hours. 77 per cent of applicants who provided feedback said that they found the online application process easy, or fairly easy, to complete. More than 90 per cent of applicants successfully used the identity verification app to prove their identity remotely, with the rest required to submit their identity document by post.

We have also learned lessons from this second private beta phase which have enabled further improvements to be made. These include improved functionality in respect of how an applicant verifies their email address; an increase in the size of files an applicant can upload, should they need to provide supporting evidence; and updates to the caseworking system.

In light of the successful testing of the online application process during the private beta phases, we have decided to proceed, as planned, with the start of the wider public implementation of the EU Settlement Scheme from 21 January 2019. From that date, the scheme will be available to resident EU citizens (and their EU citizen family members) with a valid passport, and to their non-EU citizen family members holding a valid biometric residence card, so that they can prove their identity remotely using the identity verification app, which is an integrated part of the online application process.

We currently anticipate that the further implementation of the EU Settlement Scheme will be secured through further Immigration Rules changes to be laid before Parliament in early March 2019, so that the scheme will be fully open by 30 March 2019.