British Citizens’ Rights

Debate between Lord Callanan and Lord Boyce

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for his support, but we have already started to implement, effectively, our no-deal guarantee. We have already opened the settled status scheme for applications and, as I mentioned in the Statement, something like 750,000 EU citizens have already applied through it and applications are continuing to be processed as we go. We have guaranteed rights to citizens of EU member states in the event of no deal. We are conducting a series of exercises to get out, in co-ordination with national embassies, to explain to EU citizens what those rights are and how we will protect them. I think we have a good record on this.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister say what efforts have been made, if any, to communicate with UK citizens in Europe, or are they expected to track GOV.UK? He mentions how EU citizens in the UK are being communicated with regarding their applications. What is going on as far as UK citizens in Europe are concerned?

[Lord Callanan]

The noble and gallant Lord raises a good point. We have met with the representative groups; most Ministers, myself included, try to schedule meetings with citizens’ groups when we go to EU member states, and our national embassies are of course in constant contact with the representatives of those citizens.