My Lords, I also thank the Minister for introducing this rather hefty set of statutory instruments and I echo my noble friend Lord McKenzie in citing paragraph 2.6 in the Explanatory Memorandum—which the Minister also cited:
“These instruments aim to ensure that citizens’ rights are protected as far as possible in a no-deal scenario”.
Phrases such as “as far as possible” rather leap out at us when we are looking at these things. What does it mean exactly? Will the Minister tell us what scenarios are envisaged in which it will not be possible to protect existing citizens’ rights?
Noble Lords will be pleased to know that I will be very brief, after my rather lengthy speech earlier, but I am more worried having read the debates in the Public Bill Committee on the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill. A number of those giving evidence to the Committee raised serious concerns about Clause 5, which deals with future social security co-ordination and which, in the words of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is,
“so lacking in any substance whatsoever that it cannot even be described as a skeleton … There is, moreover, no indication at all in the Explanatory Notes or Memorandum that the Government have even begun to devise their policy on the future of social security co-ordination post EU exit”.
Will the Minister explain how the regulations and this thinner-than-a-skeleton clause in the Bill relate to each other? Can she give us some assurance that the Government have begun to devise their policy regarding future social security co-ordination post EU exit, and perhaps some inkling of the lines on which they are thinking?
4.45 pm