EU Citizens in the UK

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lucas]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether it is their policy that European Union citizens lawfully resident or working in the United Kingdom at the date when the United Kingdom leaves the European Union will have an unconditional right to remain in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper but I do not expect my noble and learned friend Lord Keen to answer it. He is a Minister, but for how long? I hope that it is a long time but he does not know to which Minister he is now responsible. He does not even know which department will be responsible for dealing with this Question, so to ask for an Answer seems too much. However, I hope that I can ask him to relay to his colleagues, whoever they may turn out to be over the next day or two, the content of this debate and the way that this House clearly feels about this Question.

The EU citizens who are the subject of this Question fall into three segments. There are those who have been resident here for five years or more, or rather who will have been when we leave the European Union. It ought to be possible for the Government to say with total clarity that those people have a right to remain. It is so clearly in law but we have not quite got there in what Ministers have been able to say to date. If I could tempt my noble and learned friend in any way, it would be to give clarity—to give something unequivocal which we can take to our European friends out there and say, “You will qualify. You’ll be all right”. Then there are those who have moved here in the last three years or so, who may well not have passed the five-year mark when we leave the European Union and who are the main subject of this debate. Then there are those who are yet to join us from the European Union; I will cover those people too.

The Government have argued that giving a unilateral reassurance to EU citizens in this country that they have an unqualified right to remain would leave our citizens in European countries unprotected. My view is that the negotiating advantages which the Government seek by withholding reassurance from EU citizens here have gone but that the costs of that attitude remain. The Commons vote on 6 July was unequivocal. After that vote and all the discussions surrounding it, the EU can be in no doubt whatever as to what action we will take. It must be clear to it that our attitude as a country is that we welcomed our EU friends here, to work and to make their lives, and that although we have set a new course for ourselves we will stand by the deal that we did with our EU friends and be true to our word. There is no negotiating value in maintaining otherwise. It is obvious what we are going to do; there can be nothing to negotiate, whether we do it now or later.

Thinking that there will somehow be some kind of fast track for items in European negotiations is to underestimate the European Commission. If we want something fast, we will be made to pay for that. Nor do I think that there will be any likely action by the European Union or its component states in regard to our citizens living there. That would prompt in us some cynical tit-for-tat with their citizens living here. It seems to me that there is no longer any force in the argument that there is something to be gained by delay, but there are a great deal of costs involved in delaying. We already know that there are some instances of valuable employees choosing to leave the UK for somewhere they feel more certain of building a career over the long term. That can be withstood in the short term but if we let it persist it will start to be the jobs that move too, not just the people, and we will suffer permanent damage. I talked yesterday to a senior manager in the NHS who was recording how his European colleagues were feeling that they were “other” or unwanted—and that is in the environment of the NHS, which is essentially friendly and welcoming. If we let that continue, it will be corrosive of relationships within this country and abroad.

Surely the best protection for our citizens abroad is for us to remove the uncertainty for their equivalents here and to set a strong, moral example at the beginning of our Brexit negotiations. As my right honourable friend David Davis has pointed out, it is the countries that matter at this stage. Although they obviously all have their own interest at heart, below that lies friendship and understanding. There is no motivation there to harm our citizens. If we do the right thing now, we will set the tone for the Brexit negotiations as one of friendship, understanding and mutual advantage. I do not see the point in waiting for Jean-Claude Juncker to do the opposite.

If we take that attitude, we can commit to other things now with advantage which will help us in the short term and help the negotiations to be amicable. We can look at the question of people from the EU who want to come and work here now. Unlike citizens of any other part of the world, they cannot be certain on what conditions they would join hereon. If you come here from Australia, you know exactly what the rules are; if you come here from the EU, you do not have a clue what is happening after Brexit. We know for certain that we want some of these people. We need an inflow of doctors and nurses to the NHS; we want the brightest and the best coming in under tiers 1 and 2 to help us run the economy; we want their students in our universities. Why put off a decision on those sort of things? Why not end the uncertainty? We would gain a great deal and lose nothing.

We are aware too of the concerns of our research establishment that it is starting to be excluded from bids, as a result of it not being clear whether we will continue to qualify for Horizon 2020 and its equivalents. Instead of sitting and suffering that for a couple of years, let us instead make it clear that leaving the EU will make us a better collaborator and adopt a really positive tone towards international collaboration. Let us make it clear how these long-term relationships will continue to be nourished.

We should also support our tech start-ups. Particularly in areas where there is heavy regulation, such as medicine, it is clear already that US funders are thinking that a company starting in Britain will have two sets of regulations to deal with rather than one, and they would rather back the same idea in Berlin. We have to do something about that, and not wait until the end of negotiations.

If we are constructive and positive from the outset regarding peripheral areas and do what we know we will do eventually anyway, we will avoid the costs of prolonged uncertainty. We will reinforce our friendships around Europe and do nothing but good to the prospects of agreement in the main contentious areas such as trade and immigration.