The Home Affairs Committee have published the
Government’s response to their report Home Office
delivery of Brexit: immigration.
The report warned of serious problems for immigration service
delivery and border security due to a lack of decisions, proper
planning or sufficient resources. It questioned the Home Office’s
ability to implement the systems and staffing required to deliver
necessary changes. The Committee also criticised the continued
uncertainty over the status of EU nationals and continued failure
to publish the Immigration White Paper.
The Government’s response to the report is attached.
Committee Chair commented:
“The Government’s response to our report adds much needed clarity
on some issues but leaves substantial questions unanswered.
“Under its current plans, the Home Office will have around two
and a half years to register over three million people and grant
them either temporary or settled status. We welcome the
Government’s commitment to provide further detail of the
registration system in the next few weeks, but there are still
real concerns about the Home Office’s ability to deliver a fair
or effective system on time.
“It is crucial that the Government does not allow EU citizens
registration to repeat the nightmares of the Windrush crisis. But
this response shows there are still some very considerable risks
- especially in the approach to casework accuracy,
documentation and legal rights.
“It is welcome that the Government’s response commits to ensuring
that lessons learned from the treatment of the Windrush
generation are reflected in the registration system, but we need
to know how they intend to avoid mistakes, problems and
injustices in the system, and make sure that people who are here
legally do not lose their rights.
“Given that the Government’s response appears to dismiss our
concerns about Home Office inaccuracies, errors and poor casework
decisions, some of those crucial lessons have clearly not yet
been learnt.
“The Government’s response says that lawful residence for EU
citizens after June 2021 will depend not on the facts of their
previous residence, but simply on whether they have the required
registration documents. Yet as we saw from Windrush, there are
many circumstances when long standing residents - particularly
those coming here as children - do not get the paperwork they
need.
“In the Windrush case, people did still have lawful residence as
the Home Office have now had to accept. In the case of EU
citizens, it appears that the Government does not intend them to
have legal residence rights if they don’t have registration
papers in time even if they have been here for very many years.
That raises some serious questions that we will now pursue in our
follow up report.
“We will also seek further clarity on what the registration
requirements will be for those arriving during the grace period
and whether those registration documents will be required in
order for them to work or rent.
“As we warned in our report, this is an unprecedented challenge
and we need further evidence that the Home Office has the
resources and systems in place to stand any chance of doing this
smoothly and on time.
“And we still don’t know what the Government intends for the
post-Brexit immigration system or whether the long term
arrangements will be included in the negotiations on the future
partnership this summer. We will continue to pursue these issues
in our ongoing inquiry.
