Court of Justice of the European Union: Comprehensive Sickness Insurance

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I do not accept the points made by the noble Baroness. Past decisions in which the comprehensive sickness insurance requirement was relevant were taken by the UK Government in good faith according to our understanding of EU law at the time. As I have said to the noble Baroness, we are reviewing the implications of this judgment for the approach taken by the UK to the sickness insurance requirement while free movement law operated in the UK. I will happily update the noble Baroness and others in this House when we have more detail to provide on that judgment and its implications.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, this is clearly a complex question, but could the Minister, at the very least, give me a complete assurance that EU and EEA citizens who entered this country before December 2020 are now no longer being asked to have private health insurance?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I can reassure the noble Baroness that comprehensive sickness insurance is not a requirement to gain pre-settled status or settled status under the EU settled status scheme. We are looking carefully indeed at all the other implications of the judgment.