Priorities for Government Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Priorities for Government

Jo Swinson Excerpts
Thursday 25th July 2019

(4 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jo Swinson Portrait Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
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The 3 million EU citizens are our family, our friends, our neighbours, our carers, yet for three years they have been made to feel unwelcome in our country. They deserve better than warm words and more months of anxiety. They deserve certainty, now. The Prime Minister has made assurances, so will he back the Bill of my Lib Dem colleague Lord Oates, which would guarantee in law the rights of EU citizens? Or is he all talk and no trousers?

Boris Johnson Portrait The Prime Minister
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I congratulate the hon. Lady on her own election and join her in insisting on the vital importance of guaranteeing the rights and protections of the 3.2 million who have lived and worked among us for so long. Of course, we are insisting that their rights are guaranteed in law. I am pleased to say that under our settlement scheme some 1 million have already signed up to enshrine their rights.