European Council

Catherine West Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I assure my hon. Friend that, as I said in the Florence speech and have reiterated today, we are clear that we will honour our commitments, but we are going through those commitments line by line. Of course, part of the discussion about those commitments is precisely the legal nature of them. We are a law-abiding nation and we want to ensure that we stand by the commitments that we have made, but we are not just going to sign up to anything, as the Labour party would do.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Tomorrow, a number of EU nationals will converge on Parliament to speak to their Members of Parliament about their many feelings of distress and anxiety. What is the Prime Minister’s message to those individuals?

[The Prime Minister]

My message to them is that we value the contribution they have made here in the United Kingdom and we want them to stay. That is what we are working for, and we have made significant progress in relation to citizens’ rights. I made a number of commitments in a letter I wrote last week to EU citizens living here in the United Kingdom, and I stand by those commitments. We want them to stay.