EU Settlement Scheme

Debate between Ian Murray and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

No, it was not devolved; the UK Government implemented that policy at the insistence of the Scottish First Minister who brought it forward.

In 2019, the Prime Minister famously promised to get Brexit done, yet here we are, 18 months after his Government’s election with a majority, still debating the details of these schemes more than five years after the referendum, with many EU nationals still living in limbo. The Government have not got it done, and will never get it done as they promised the public they would. We need to be getting Brexit to work properly. The EU settlement scheme is another example of where many people are falling through the gaps, with the Government unable to contact them and get them into the scheme.

I say again, regretfully, that we will not be able to back the motion. I hope that the Government will listen to charities or to the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), and even now extend the deadline for the thousands of EU citizens who have failed to submit their applications on time through no fault of their own. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us how many EU citizens living in the UK the Home Office believes have not managed to apply on time, and what the Department is doing about finding and contacting them and getting them to apply on time. It is particularly important for the Home Office to contact proactively those citizens who are either vulnerable or hard to reach as a result of issues such as a lack of internet access, or who do not think the scheme applies to them because they have been here for so long. I hope the Minister can reassure us that the applications of the nearly half a million people who submitted them before 30 June will be concluded as quickly as possible.

What is missing from these debates is the fact that those affected are our neighbours, our friends, our partners, our colleagues and our fellow citizens. They are human beings, not numbers on a Home Office screen. Those are the people who have chosen to make this country—our home—their home. Together, we make this country our home. As we chart the next phase of our country’s history, we would do well to remember that we are talking about human beings and we need to make sure that the scheme works for them all.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I remind the House that if colleagues’ speeches are between four and five minutes, we should be able to get everybody in.