European Union Citizenship

Ben Lake Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Being a citizen of the EU brings tangible benefits, and I want to return the debate to focusing a little on the impact of European citizenship on UK citizens. It allows people from the UK to move easily to mainland Europe and between European countries, be it for work, study or pleasure. Furthermore, when we are in Europe it enables us to enjoy a range of rights on healthcare, education, work and social security. Young people I meet feel particularly strongly about this issue. Given the insecurity clouding the horizons of so many across the UK, it is not surprising that the material freedoms afforded by EU citizenship are held to be so important.

I should mention in passing that it is important to remember that EU citizenship has always been additional to UK citizenship. Never have they been mutually exclusive. For many, EU citizenship and the rights that it entails have become synonymous with opportunity, offering them a chance to broaden their horizons. As has been mentioned, there is no legal reason why a limit must be placed on such opportunity—no reason why UK citizens must be stripped of their rights and freedoms.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

On the topic of reasons, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the free movement of labour was a key concern of not only those who voted leave but those who voted remain, like me? Does he not believe that, as elected representatives, it is important for us to represent their views?

[Ben Lake]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, although I fear that perhaps she mistakes the point I was making. Perhaps I was not clear enough: I am discussing the rights of UK citizens and their ability to travel to Europe to work and to live. The issue is not freedom of movement; I am talking about a system that people would be able to opt into, but that they could also opt out of.

It is entirely possible to pursue associate EU citizenship for UK citizens, and there are ample precedents from which such a scheme could draw. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) has just mentioned Greenland, and my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) mentioned the experience in Ireland. Perhaps Members would like to look into the interesting situation of the citizens of some of the Crown dependencies in the Channel Islands, where there is a bespoke and unique relationship. I suppose the point I am making is that it is a matter of political will. When it comes to negotiations, there is a way to ensure that benefits are afforded to everybody equally.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a strong case. Currently, young people—indeed, everybody—in the UK can go without a permit to work in 30 other countries: the 27 other EU countries and three of the European economic area countries. After we come out the EU, the number will be zero. A French person of the same age will still be able to go to 29 different countries. What a difference in rights and opportunities that is.

[Ben Lake]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes an important point about unnecessarily limiting the horizons of UK citizens. That is the point I am trying to make, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.

As I mentioned, this is perhaps not a legal issue but more a question of political will. The will of the public—in particular, their support for such a measure—is quite clear. As my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon mentioned in his opening remarks, according to research led by the London School of Economics and Opinium in July 2017, of those Britons asked, six out of 10 wanted to keep their EU citizenship after Brexit, and they particularly wanted to keep the rights to live, work, study and travel within the EU. Support for the retention of those rights is particularly strong among 18 to 24-year-olds, of whom 85% want to retain their EU citizenship in addition to their British citizenship.

In October 2017, a further report was published by the LSE on youth perspectives and priorities for the Brexit negotiations. Focus groups revealed widespread fear and frustration. Prime among young people’s concerns were questions regarding the loss of their EU benefits, including their ability to gain access to educational programmes, opportunities to work and travel in Europe, and rights that they have once they are there.

Ceredigion, the constituency that I have the honour of serving, was one of the handful of Welsh areas that voted to remain. Indeed, prior to the referendum, Ceredigion was widely reported to be one of the most Europhile counties in the whole United Kingdom. To put it bluntly, my constituency did not support leaving the EU and most certainly did not give any Government a mandate to deny its citizens the rights and freedoms that membership of the EU ensures, or, as the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) said, a mandate to limit their horizons and opportunities in comparison with citizens of other European states.

As has been mentioned, the question of the future status of the rights bestowed on UK citizens by EU membership will not disappear; rather, it will grow in both prominence and importance as negotiations progress. A lot has been made of the clarity, or lack thereof, of EU law on the status of the rights of UK citizens after we have left, but I wish to draw attention to international law. European law and its founding treaties may offer a clear interpretation one way, but the reverse is equally clear in international law. If anything, the 1969 Vienna convention on the law of treaties means that it is incumbent on both the UK and the EU to address this matter of future status urgently, for even if article 70(1)(b) of the convention is interpreted in such a way that the withdrawal of a member state from the EU extinguishes the rights of individuals created by the founding treaties, international law would still require that a treaty is agreed on the future status of such rights.

Associate European citizenship is a model that the UK Government could adopt and pursue. As well as affording UK citizens the ability to continue to enjoy the rights and freedoms they currently do, it would safeguard the dormant rights of younger generations, and, perhaps most importantly of all, grant generations yet to be born the same opportunities from which those of us present here today have been able to benefit.

[Stephen Doughty]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making such a passionate and eloquent case, which I wholeheartedly support. Like him, I represent a constituency—Cardiff South and Penarth—in which people voted to remain. Does he share the real horror that I have of speaking to young people? We are still relatively young ourselves, but we had those opportunities to go abroad. I lived in Denmark and Belgium and enjoyed all my opportunities, but we now have to go around our constituencies and tell young people that they will have fewer opportunities, fewer rights and fewer prospects than we did even just a few years ago.

[Ben Lake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who has got to the nub of the issue. By not pursuing this option or addressing the matter more thoroughly, we are at risk of denying our younger generations the opportunities that we were able to enjoy.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ben Lake]

I will give way to the Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Is he seriously suggesting that the European Union is likely to ban young people from Britain from travelling in other EU countries? If it was trying to do that, would we not be quite right to walk away from an organisation that was willing to contemplate such an outrageous thing?

[Ben Lake]

I respectfully thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I suggest that what the EU may or may not do is not a matter for this House. I do not think that I have cast any aspersions on what the EU might want to do. What I am saying is that it is in the gift of the Government, and this place, to pursue associate European citizenship to ensure that our young people—in fact not just young people but citizens of the UK old and young—can still enjoy the rights that we currently have.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. Does he share my concern that a fourth-year student at Lochend High School in Easterhouse should be able to go on to the Erasmus programme in the next year or two, but because of the vague promises that the Prime Minister has made, that opportunity will not be there? It is therefore the UK Government who are taking such opportunities away from the young people in the east of Glasgow.

[Ben Lake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I agree that the uncertainty is certainly not helpful to anybody. When I speak to a lot of young people, those are precisely the concerns that they raise with me. They do not know what the future holds. At one time, they did know—they were able to plan ahead to do the things that their elder siblings or family members had been able to enjoy. Now they find themselves in the daunting situation of not being able to do so.

My point is that Brexit need not rid UK nationals—young or old—of those rights, and international law is quite clear on that. How UK nationals retain their European citizenship after Brexit is therefore a matter of political will. It is for the Government to propose a model to achieve that, and to negotiate so that it is included in the withdrawal agreement.

Associate citizenship not only presents a possible solution but offers much-needed compromise for an embattled Government and a way to heal the deep divisions that have emerged across the UK. Let me reiterate a point that I made earlier to the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan): this will be a model in which someone could opt in or refuse to opt in—the choice will be theirs. It will be a way to heal divisions. The former Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), said that

“if Brexit does not work for young people in our country, in the end it will not be sustainable”.—[Official Report, 17 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 918.]