UK Withdrawal from the EU and Potential Withdrawal from the Single Market

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I chair the Justice Sub-Committee of the European Union Select Committee. Our committee was really the producer of the Brexit: Acquired Rights report, which was submitted to the House by the European Union Select Committee. The very term “acquired rights” is one that had to be examined because, in the run-up to the referendum, confidence was given to European Union nationals living in this country and to our citizens living in other parts of Europe that they would have acquired rights, that everything would be fine and that they were not to worry. In fact, the notion of acquired rights is a term in international law, and the evidence before our committee showed that acquired rights did not provide very much comfort at all for people living here or for British citizens living in other parts of Europe. It was not designed for that purpose. It relates much more to the state’s compulsory acquisition of companies and assets and so on, and works on a different level. The individual rights that people cherish—the right to live, work and study in this country, or for our citizens to do so in other parts of Europe—will certainly be in question as we leave Europe. Therefore, we should be thinking about this very seriously.

The Justice Sub-Committee was convinced by the moral argument, and it is that that we should think about first and foremost. One thing we have taken pride in is that we do not just operate on what suits us economically; we also think about our responsibilities. We have responsibilities to those who come to live and work and who need a life in this country. Many of those people face real anxiety. As we have heard, many of them have been confronted with serious problems in trying to consolidate their position and take up formal residence. The procedures are elaborate and byzantine—there are 80 pages of documentation—and they have to produce all manner of stuff that most of us would not have kept over many years. A very close friend of mine who is an enormously successful businessman in this country, who has been in the financial sector, describes how after 40 years of living here he has had to employ lawyers. He asks what that might mean for ordinary people trying to engage with this process. This should not be the case for people who have come here to work in our National Health Service, our financial services or our hospitality industries, who do all manner of work or who are here studying. We should also consider how it affects their families. Those people should not be a bargaining chip. While we are of course concerned for the rights of our citizens living in Spain who perhaps retired there because of the climate—I only today received an email from a gentleman living in Spain who went there because of his wife’s chronic illness; she has now died and he is very anxious about his position and his own healthcare now that he is a retiree—people who have come to live and work here should not be a bargaining chip. Our report recommends that we should make a unilateral declaration that we will protect the rights of those citizens into the future as they have had them up until now.

I am the head of an Oxford college. Our vice-chancellor, Louise Richardson, called a meeting for Europeans working at all levels in the university—some were academics, but some worked in staffing and administration and so on. Some 1,700 people turned up, full of anxiety about their future. We should urge the Government to take a unilateral step. That would do a number of things. Any of us who have ever been involved in negotiations know that if you put something out there in the beginning, it wins good will for you in further negotiations. I have no doubt that there will be reciprocity from the other countries of Europe with regard to our citizens living there. But to hesitate at this stage and not to give such an assurance now is wrong. I have heard from firm Brexiteers that they agree that we should act now and not wait until the triggering of Article 50.

We should create a new system of fast-tracking specifically for those from other parts of Europe, and it should not involve the byzantine process that currently exists. We should have a special system for those who were living here at the point of the referendum.