EU Citizens in the UK

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to speak in this debate and support the Question put by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who is absolutely right. The situation of the citizens of other EU member states in the UK is now getting very serious, whether they are here for five, 10 or 15 years or for a few months. As he says, the problem is the uncertainty. I have been talking to my many friends who fall into this category, including people working in the public sector, local authorities, manufacturing—there is a big story to tell there—and the health services, as the noble Lord said. I was with a hospital consultant last night who does a lot of research into children’s diseases and treatment across the EU, who was saying, “What do we do? Is everybody going to leave?”. Lots of people here from the EU work in the health service, and that applies to many other fields of research too. I declare an interest as a trustee of Plymouth Marine Laboratory. It gets quite a lot of money from the EU for research, and a lot of people come from the EU to work there and gain experience. That goes two ways of course, as I will come on to.

We all know about the need for workers in the agriculture, hotel, catering and entertainment sectors, but we should not forget the arts. There have been a few comments recently from orchestra players feeling that they cannot stay here any more because they are worried about the long term. We need both communities to work together and to learn from and benefit each other. There are of course people who are married to or have a relationship with somebody from a different member state. I know many of them, and they are very upset, because of the uncertainty. This idea that came out in the debate for Brexit about everybody sponging from the state is a total load of rubbish. Most of these people work very hard and some of them send money back—I suggest that we need them. Now that the Prime Minister has, rightly, said she is going to take the negotiations slowly, that will merely delay the uncertainty unless something is done.

The same comments apply in the other direction, to UK nationals working in other member states. Some noble Lords may have received a very interesting email about a week ago from somebody who is representing more than 200 people who had got together, listing all the things that made them very worried and need sorting out. We could have a debate on each one, and all of them apply both ways. The first one is obviously residency. I will not go into each one, because there is nothing like enough time for that, but healthcare is another. What happens to the E111 and everything else if we leave? How does health insurance work?

What about property ownership? Many people own property in France and other member states, and that works the other way too. Will that be affected, for example in relation to property tax? Then there are bank accounts, loans, mortgages and everything that everybody takes for granted now. What happens to pensions, whether private or state? We do not know; they do not know. Then there is education: university fees, British teachers abroad, children in local education in the country of residence et cetera. I am only reading out the headlines here, but it goes on for another page. What about the pet passport? I do not keep a dog myself but for some people that is very important.

The right to work is fundamental, because many of our UK nationals work on the continent for very good reasons. Will they still be allowed to? We talk about the single market and manufacturing, which are obviously big issues, but there are also small businesses. Will EU nationals be able to run their businesses in a different member state? There is also income tax, double taxation, benefits, wills and inheritance, passports, driving licences, ID cards, vehicles, customs and excise, and border controls. That is just a small list of things that are going to go wrong unless the Government recognise this and do something about it. I know that they are setting up Brexit committees or groups of officials in each department of state to work these things out, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that, while it is all going on, it is going take a very long time—whether two years or three, we do not know. The uncertainty is having a very serious effect on people, financially as well as socially. They are frightened; their lives have been plunged into uncertainty.

Ministers have so far refused to make any commitment until new Ministers are in place. Perhaps it is a bit soon to talk about this today, but I urge the new Ministers to say that there is a red line, and that we think it right that EU nationals—and, in the other direction, UK nationals—who are here at the moment should have the right to remain. That could easily be set as a red line for the start of negotiations. I suspect that our friends on the continent with whom we will be negotiating would welcome that as being perfectly reasonable.