EU Nationals

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I will just finish answering the first intervention before taking any more.

At the last calculation, this country’s net migration figure was some 246,000, and roughly half of them were EU nationals, who continue to come to this country. People see the UK as a country to come to, and rightly so. We should continue to be a country that welcomes people and plays that role.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way on that?

[Brandon Lewis]

I am going to make some progress, and I will then take some interventions. I am conscious of the limited time available for Back-Bench Members.

The future rights of EU citizens living here is an issue that has an impact on the lives of millions of hard-working people across the country, and it has been the Prime Minister’s first priority in the negotiations to ensure that they can carry on living their lives here as before. I therefore welcome the opportunity to outline that further today. The Government have been making it clear at every opportunity that we want to offer EU citizens living in the UK certainty about their future status as early as possible. We have been clear that no EU citizen currently lawfully in the UK will have to leave when we exit the EU, and hon. Members can play their part by reassuring their constituents of that fact—I am sure that they would not want to mislead anyone any further.

In June, we published a fair and comprehensive offer in respect of the position of EU citizens and their family members in the UK, giving residents who were here before a specified date the opportunity to take UK settled status after completing their qualifying residence period and enabling them to carry on with their lives as before. Family dependants who join a qualifying EU citizen in the UK before the exit date will also be able to apply for UK settled status after five years’ continuous residence—irrespective of the specified date. We have committed to provide an application system that is streamlined and user-friendly. Our intention is to develop a system that draws on existing Government data, such as the employment records held by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which will for the majority verify their residence as a worker. Our priority is to minimise the burden of documentary evidence required to prove eligibility under the withdrawal agreement.

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Lady should look at what has already been said and at what we have outlined. She should read the Government’s offer, which clearly answers her very point. She has a part to play in reassuring her residents, rather than leaving them wondering about things on which they can have fixed answers.

We have already said that there will be a two-year period after exit for people to make an application, and our caseworkers will be exercising discretion in favour of the applicant, where appropriate, to avoid any unnecessary administrative burdens. For those who already hold an EU permanent residence document, there will be a very simple process to exchange it for a settled status document.

[Andy Slaughter]

I can tell the Minister what EU citizens think of his proposals because one in six of my constituents is an EU citizen. They think the proposals are bureaucratic and expensive, and that they will deliver second-class citizen status. He should withdraw the proposals and give EU citizens equal status, as they have now. He should do it unilaterally and he should do it now.

[Brandon Lewis]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will want to go back, check the details of what we have already outlined on how the process will work and update his residents. They do not have to have those concerns, because what he has just outlined is simply inaccurate.

We have also been very clear that we fully expect the EU and its member states to ensure that the rights of UK nationals living across the EU before the specified date are safeguarded in a reciprocal way. Despite not mentioning it so far this afternoon, I would like to think that Members on both sides of the House will want to do the right thing and ensure that British citizens have their rights protected, too. This issue must therefore be resolved as part of the negotiations on our exit from the EU to ensure the fair treatment of UK nationals living in other EU countries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

We have heard a lot from Government Members about EU citizens being valued and welcome, but words are cheap in that regard. I go out and speak to EU citizens every weekend. More often than not, when I knock on doors I will meet an EU citizen, because they are fully integrated into the community and so they are often the partners, husbands, wives or flatmates of British citizens. I am talking not about what I say to them, but about what they say to me. They are genuinely distressed and upset, and they feel as though they are being treated as second-class citizens. That is not just because of the failure to grant or promise them rights, but because of what they are being offered.

The most recent document is the so-called technical note. That is a disingenuous phrase, because the document is a policy statement that gives EU citizens rights that are less than they would otherwise have. We do not know yet whether that will be the final version. The fact remains that there will have to be an application process, and there will be a fee. That applies even to those who have permanent residence already. There will be requirements on such citizens that are more onerous than the ones they currently have to meet. All of that sends out the signal that they will not have a status equal to what they have at the moment, but will have second-class status.

The Government should accept—I cannot better what the3million group has said in response to the technical note—that such people want the same rights as now, and they should be granted that without having to pay a fee and without having to go through a long and bureaucratic process. If the Government do not accept that, the signal they are sending out to EU nationals in this country is they are not as welcome as they should be.

People are already voting with their feet. They are not going to make decisions in a year’s time; they are making them now. These are often talented people who could work elsewhere, and if the Government wish them to leave the country and work elsewhere, they should at least be up front about that. They are suggesting, through the backdoor, that EU citizens currently resident in this country are not going to have the same rights and will not be treated on the same basis, but will have to go through identity checks and residence checks in order to stay in this country. Why should they put up with such a change of attitude and such a change of status?

The Minister should be able to say in response to the motion, first, that there will a unilateral decision, and secondly, that that decision will be for a status that is exactly equal to what residents have now. If she cannot do that, all the words that Ministers have said will carry no weight, and we will see that they are placing less value on EU citizens than they have now.