UK Nationals in the EU: Rights

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I will start by being quite clear about one thing: the rights of UK citizens living in the European Union have been put at risk by the vote that took place 15 months ago. If the British Government cared so passionately about the rights of those UK citizens living in other EU states, why did they not give them a vote in that referendum? However, we are kind of beyond that now. Like many other people in this Chamber, I am sure, I wish we were not where we are now, but we are where we are. As has already been said very eloquently by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), we are 15 months down the line, we are well into the negotiations, and we still have no certainty about the position of UK citizens living in other EU states or the position of EU nationals living in the UK.

My constituency email box is full of emails about EU nationals who live and work in Edinburgh South West and who are uncertain about their ongoing position, but I am also starting to get quite a lot of emails from former constituents who now live abroad—UK citizens in the EU—who are worried about their position. I will quote from a typical email, which I received earlier this week when the correspondent realised that this debate was happening. A former resident of my constituency who is now resident in France, she is very worried and uncertain about many things. Here are some of the questions that she raised:

“Will my British son be able to attend University in Edinburgh post-Brexit…without having to pay prohibitive ‘international’ fees?...will my daughter, currently training as a nurse, be able to choose to work in France after her course, which ends after Brexit?...will my husband and I be able to aggregate our pensions (we have paid contributions in both the UK and France) and retire in the country of our choice? ...as our parents age, will we be able to bring them to France to look after them, or alternatively, would we be able to return to the UK to look after them, perhaps for several years, without losing our right to live in France? ...will my daughter’s French girlfriend be able to settle with her in the UK if that is what they want to do?”

These are all perfectly legitimate questions to which, prior to the uncertainty created by the EU referendum, there would have been certain and clear answers—one of the many joys of the EU. Now, however, as a result of a referendum that was fought in a void of information, people asking such questions are gravely uncertain.

The United Kingdom created this problem and it is incumbent upon us to make a generous gesture to try to resolve it. I and other Scottish National party MPs have said many times on the Floor of the House and in hustings throughout the election campaign that Government Members often say to us, “If you make a unilateral guarantee to EU citizens living in the United Kingdom, then you are selling down the river the rights of UK citizens living in Europe.” My reply to Government Members is, “No, because we started this problem. We started it and it is incumbent upon us to make a generous gesture.” We are constantly told by the Brexiteers and some Government Members that the UK has so much to gain from these negotiations and so much to offer the EU that the EU will be desperate to give us the terms that we want. If that is the case, why not make a generous gesture?

People should not just take my word for this. In the last Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) and I sat on the Exiting the European Union Committee. That Committee produced a unanimous cross-party report that made the following recommendation:

“EU nationals in the UK and UK nationals in the EU are aware that their fate is subject to the negotiations. They do not want to be used as bargaining chips, and the uncertainty they are having to live with is not acceptable. Notwithstanding the assurance given by the home secretary, we”—

the cross-party Committee—

“recommend that the UK should now make a unilateral decision to safeguard the rights of EU nationals living in the UK.”

We made that recommendation because we had heard evidence from UK citizens living in the EU that that was what they wanted. It was not just the odd random person who came to give evidence to us. We took evidence from UK citizens representing groups of British people resident in France, Italy, Spain and Belgium, and to a man and a woman they said that they wanted this unilateral guarantee to be given. Let us stop messing about and using people as bargaining chips. Let us make that unilateral guarantee without further delay.