European Union Citizenship

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I beg to move,

That this House supports the maintenance of European Union citizenship rights for Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and English citizens; notes that the range of rights and protections afforded to individuals as European Union citizens are integral to a person’s European identity; further notes that many of those rights are closely linked to the UK’s membership of the Single Market; and calls on the UK Government to ensure that the UK’s membership of the Single Market and UK citizens’ right to European Union citizenship are retained in the event that the UK leaves the EU.

Before I begin, may I apologise to the House? I have a very bad head cold that has rendered me slightly deaf, although that is perhaps no great disadvantage in this place. I caution any Member who intervenes that I might have some difficulty hearing them.

Our motion calls for UK nationals to retain European citizenship after we leave the European Union. The key word here is “retain”: we wish to retain what we already have. It is supported by a wide range of organisations and individuals: the Scottish National party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green party, Open Britain, Best for Britain, the European Movement, The New European, Cymru Dros Ewrop—Wales for Europe, New Europeans, Our Future Our Choice, Brand EU, UKtoStay.EU and Another Europe is Possible, as well as Jo Maugham, QC, of the Good Law Project, and Professor Volker Roeben and Dr Pedro Telles, two of the authors of a report on EU citizenship commissioned by my good friend Jill Evans, the Plaid Cymru MEP. Since the referendum, they have been arguing consistently for the retention of EU citizenship, and I recommend the report to anyone who wishes to pursue this argument. To the relief of hard-pressed Members, I can say that the executive summary is very good.

The crux of our argument is that although we are leaving the EU, the European citizenship rights conferred on UK citizens are not extinguished. Although we are leaving, those rights persist. Continuing Union citizenship is the more convincing interpretation of European and international law. Indeed, the principle that although a treaty might be bought to an end, the rights conferred by it are not extinguished, is enshrined strongly in international law. I refer Members to the 1969 Vienna convention on the law of treaties, which will be binding on member states, the UK and the EU itself post Brexit. Article 70(1)(b) of that convention provides that “legal situations” created during the currency of the treaties continue after withdrawal.

As Professor Roeben et al say on page five of the report:

“This interpretation of the Convention, that ongoing situations and rights continue, is supported by the overriding objective of ensuring legal certainty and preventing withdrawals from treaties having any retroactive effect. It is also supported by state practice.”

That is a crucial aspect of international law. Governments withdrawing from treaties cannot just abandon the rights their citizens already have. Professor Roeben tells me, by the way, that this article, as with much international law, was drawn up with the prominent participation of British legal experts.

There is an alternative reading that article 50 extinguishes all rights of the individual created by the founding treaties. In that case, both EU and international law would demand that a treaty be negotiated on associate Union citizenship, bringing with it a bundle of rights that might be little different from those that come with full citizenship. One way or other, we believe that EU citizenship of a sort is required.

The EU could legislate on citizenship post Brexit. That legislation would protect UK nationals in the EU, but would have no binding effect on the UK—by definition, because we would have left. We therefore urge the Government to look to achieving continuity and associate citizenship through the withdrawal agreement. That is why today’s debate is particularly timely.

The report concludes that neither continuity nor associate citizenship would require any revision of the founding treaties. There is a great deal more detail in the report that I will not go into today, but it will become pertinent if the Government recognise the force of our argument and proceed as we recommend. For now, I wish to set the context for our party’s position and say plainly from the start that Plaid Cymru campaigned to stay in the European Union. This was consistent with our long-term pro-European policy—indeed, that has been our policy since our establishment in 1925.

We have always been aware of our European history and our nation’s European heritage and have set great store by it. That has influenced our party profoundly. Our long-time president, Gwynfor Evans, who was the Member for Carmarthen, would rarely miss the opportunity to remind the people of Wales of our European heritage and our 1,500-year history as a people with our own language and culture, from our immediate post-Roman beginnings onwards to the present day. In fact, his conference speeches would often consist of retelling our history. I am reminded of a small joke made by two valleys members during one of Gwynfor’s speeches. One said to the other, “Good God, this is 20 minutes in and we are only in the 9th century!”

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

My hon. Friend is making his usual excellent case when he leads these debates. We could go even further back to Saunders Lewis, who was the president before Gwynfor Evans. Saunders saw our European heritage as vital to his vision for Wales for the future, partly driven by his time in the trenches in the first world war and his desire not to see another generation of Welshmen die in the fields of foreign lands.

[Hywel Williams]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I was going to refer later to the fact that the European Union has helped largely to prevent war on the European continents, although there are obvious exceptions, such as in the former Yugoslavia, which was not a member of the EU. He makes a pertinent point about Saunders Lewis, who had that profound experience in the trenches. It was one reason why he and his friends set up Plaid Cymru in August 1925 in my home town of Preseli, at a meeting of the Eisteddfod. While I am on my feet, I might as well also say that our profound lack of political realism at that time meant that in a country that was almost exclusively non-conformist, teetotal and in favour of the British empire, we had as our president a Francophile, wine-drinking Catholic—I think Machiavelli is still rotating in his grave after that one, but there we are. The roots of our pro-European stance are very deep indeed.

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[Hywel Williams]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. As with so many things Welsh, we lack the basic statistical information and the basic projections. I know that the Government do not believe in experts, projections and forecasts, but I sometimes wonder on what they do depend. In Rome, they depended on examining the entrails of sacrificed animals—I do not know whether that is what they get up to—but he makes a serious point: if we knew what we were dealing with, we could make the argument more effectively.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am glad that my hon. Friend mentions Erasmus and Horizon, two schemes whereby the Welsh Government could act bilaterally with the EU. Does he share my concern, arising from my discussions with colleagues in Brussels, that the Scottish Government seem far in advance of the Welsh Government in negotiating with the EU how those schemes could be continued in our respective nations?

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[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, particularly for military families, who move around a great deal and for whom it might be harder to demonstrate living in one particular place. We are determined to make sure this scheme has a default position of accepting that people are EU citizens living here, and we want there to be a default “Yes” for settled status, and certainly not a default “No.”

We have been clear that we will seek to agree an implementation period beyond March 2019 of around two years. The purpose of such a period is to give people, business and indeed our own public services in the UK and across the EU the time they need to put in place the new arrangements that will be required to adjust to our future partnership. It will take time to implement a new immigration framework.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I fear the Minister might have misunderstood the topic for debate. We are aiming to discuss the issue of the European citizenship of UK subjects, as opposed to the rights of EU citizens.

[Caroline Nokes]

I am going to move on to the points the hon. Member for Arfon made, and perhaps the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) will indulge me by allowing me to get there.

As I was about to say, during the implementation period, which will be time-limited, people will be able to come to the UK to live and work as they do now, and this will be reciprocal, meaning UK nationals will also be able to travel to live and work in the EU.

Last week, the Home Secretary published a position paper setting out that EU citizens arriving during the implementation period should be able to work towards settlement in the UK. People arriving during this period should not have the same expectations as those who arrived during our membership of the EU, but it is right that we set out the rules that will apply to these individuals when this period ends, to provide them with the certainty they need. These rights will be enforceable in UK law, and we will not seek to include them in the withdrawal agreement; however, we will discuss this with the Commission in the coming weeks.

Turning more broadly to the question of EU citizenship, the Government have been clear that our membership of the EU will end on 29 March 2019. We are content to listen to proposals from the EU on associate citizenship for UK nationals. However, to date this has not been formally proposed to the UK in the negotiations. EU treaty provisions state that only citizens of EU member states are able to hold EU citizenship. Therefore, when the UK ceases to be a member of the European Union, UK nationals will no longer hold EU citizenship unless they hold dual nationality with another member state.

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It comes as no surprise that the deputy director general of the CBI, no less, has said of this Tory Government that he is “hugely frustrated” by their lack of progress on an immigration Bill.

EU citizens are our friends, our colleagues and our neighbours. They are people on whose doors we knocked in the general election last year. When people are making a positive contribution to our economy, our national health service, which already has issues with recruitment, social care, our universities and other sectors, the Government’s continuing failure to legislate only highlights the fact that they could have done so much unilaterally a long time ago. The Minister referred to the phase 1 agreement, which I have in front of me, and the continuing uncertainty mentioned by the hon. Member for Arfon remains an issue. Paragraph 34 of the agreement is clear:

“Both Parties agree that the Withdrawal Agreement should provide for the legal effects of the citizens’ rights Part both in the UK and in the Union. UK domestic legislation should also be enacted to this effect.”

Where is the legislation? It should be brought forward as soon as possible.

We now know that nothing will be agreed in the negotiations until everything is agreed. We also know, because the Immigration Minister told the House a few weeks ago, that the Migration Advisory Committee has been asked

“to advise on the economic aspects of the UK’s exit”

by September, and I see that the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), is nodding. The Immigration Minister then said that there was

“plenty of time to take account of the MAC’s recommendations in designing the longer-term immigration system for the UK.”—[Official Report, 5 February 2018; Vol. 635, c. 1212.]

She says “plenty of time” but this is a two-year Parliament, and she has until March 2019 to get legislation on the statute book. Time is of the essence. If I take the Minister at her word that we will have the legislation when the time is right, may I gently suggest that that time might be now? She attends the Cabinet in her role as Immigration Minister, and she needs to persuade the Cabinet to give her the time to bring the legislation before this House. While it is my view and that of the Opposition that the status of EU nationals in this country should have been dealt with unilaterally a long time ago, not left subject to negotiation in this way—nor should there ever have been the reported comments of the International Trade Secretary that people be used as bargaining chips—the Minister could act now, and act she should.

I welcome the contribution from the hon. Member for Arfon, and the Minister said that it would be considered, and we must be careful about not excluding options from the table as we go forward. None the less, I suggest to the Minister, as she tries to put together the whole gamut of immigration policy for this country post-Brexit, that in order to achieve a fair, managed and efficient policy she must look at this country’s economic needs and work with business and the trade unions.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I congratulate him on his speech. However, would it be Labour party policy to support our proposal for associate citizenship?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I have just said that we should not take any options off the table. I always welcome contributions from the hon. Gentleman, and I look forward to the Government’s response—[Interruption.] I will certainly give the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) my position on a number of matters in a moment, but let me make another point first.

Perhaps the Tory party could repair its relationship with the CBI if it properly consulted business and the unions about our future immigration system. It could end the years of exploitation of migrant workers, which it has done so little about, increase the number of prosecutions for breaches of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, which have been going on for far too long, reinstate the migrant impact fund, remove international students from the statistics and, perhaps above all, move away from this obsession with bogus immigration targets. The Tories have never achieved their numerical target, despite having promised it over three general elections.

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[Matt Warman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that this is a moveable feast on the other side of the channel, and we should bear that in mind.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman raises a point made by the Minister, on whom I wished to intervene. He will be aware of the Vienna convention on the law of treaties and that, under that legal ruling, citizens’ rights may not be lost. Surely that is the legal precedent we should be following.

[Matt Warman]

The hon. Gentleman uses the word “may,” and we should be looking at what the options are and at what the precedents may be. The Minister is right to say that we will no longer be members when we leave, and therefore we will no longer have the rights we currently have. The hon. Gentleman may pray in aid precedents that suggest something else, and we may be able to rely on some of those precedents in due course. We should not prejudge any of that, and we have to be pragmatic in where we start.

It is also worth bearing it in mind that people across my constituency and across the country voted for precisely those kinds of differences. They voted for the Government to negotiate a new relationship with Europe, which is precisely what we are doing.

One aspect of the motion on which the hon. Member for Arfon did not particularly dwell is single market access, which defines a huge part of our relationship with the EU. This is not a fault that he committed, but it is a frustrating and patronising element of some aspects of this debate to say that people did not know what they were voting for when they voted in the referendum. My constituents were very clear that they were voting to leave the single market because they were voting to strike our own trade deals with other countries across the world and to open up new opportunities. We should not allow ourselves to pretend there was not a full and frank debate about what leaving the European Union might mean before people went into the polling booths.

A crucial part of the motion implies there are not the opportunities outside the EU that people voted for. The hon. Gentleman frames it as though all we will be doing is losing rights when we leave the European Union. We should, of course, bear it in mind that there will be a different relationship, but there are opportunities out there, too. Part of the Prime Minister’s positive approach is to say that there are opportunities that we must seize and that there is another side to the coin—that not everyone can have every single thing they might wish for.

The hon. Gentleman proposed that we could stay in the single market and retain all our rights as they are today. My response to him is that he should not be wilfully blind to the opportunities. I think we will get a good deal with the European Union that allows us to retain many of the benefits we see today, but we will also have access to a wider world out there in a very different way. That is not to say that it will all be a bed of roses and that it will be the easiest thing we could ever do, but he should acknowledge the other side of the coin.

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[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

It is a huge pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) on his speech, which opened the debate. He set out the case in his usual forensic style, providing great clarity and detail about what is being proposed. I also thoroughly enjoyed the speeches from the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins), who once again proved why he is one of the superstar performers of this Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), who again showed why he is one of the rising stars of Welsh politics, and my parliamentary leader, my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), who spoke with her usual great authority, concentrating on the example following the independence of Ireland at the beginning of the last century. She gave us a fantastic history lesson in her contribution.

On the morning after the referendum, on 24 June 2016, I had been given the honour of being the guest speaker at the graduation ceremony of the local further education college in my county, Coleg Sir Gâr. The ceremony was held at the fabulous Ffos Las racecourse in Carwe, in my constituency. Somewhat bleary-eyed and shellshocked after watching the referendum results in the early hours of the morning, I vividly remember standing up at the podium and looking out at the hundreds of young graduates and their families before me. I dropped my speaking notes and went completely off script. Instead of diving into my speech, to talk about how proud they should be of their achievements and how they should look forward to their future, I apologised to those young people.

My apology was based on being part of the political class that had allowed a set of circumstances that would reduce their life chances and opportunities compared with those that had been available to me and the generations before me—primarily the right to travel, live, work, receive healthcare and reside in any other part of the European Union, among other rights. We have had powerful contributions from several Members, and that is the crux of what we are trying to grapple with today.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I apologise to his colleagues that I missed the start of the debate. The reason was that, like the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who spoke a few minutes ago, I am a member of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union, and some of us had the privilege of meeting a delegation from the Parliament of Slovakia who are in Westminster.

[Peter Grant]

It is highly relevant, Mr Deputy Speaker, because most of the people we met were born in the shadow of the iron curtain. They now have the right to travel all over western Europe and a great deal of central and eastern Europe. Does the hon. Gentleman share my bafflement that while those people are celebrating their fairly recently won right to travel everywhere, we have a Government here that seem determined to take measures that might endanger the right of future generations of UK citizens to travel as freely as our Slovakian friends can travel now?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As always, he makes a very valid point. I congratulate him on the excellent work he is doing on the Select Committee. I was privileged to serve on that Committee with him in the last Parliament, and his contributions are always extremely valuable.

Much of the debate following the referendum has surrounded the economic impact of Brexit. There is little doubt in my mind that the best way to protect the Welsh economy is to stay inside the single market and the customs union, and that has been my position from day one. The issue of European Union citizenship rights of UK subjects, however, has not had the level of consideration it deserves.

At this point, I should pay tribute to Jill Evans, the Plaid Cymru MEP representing the whole of Wales who commissioned a report on that issue in the immediate aftermath of the referendum. Her work has gathered considerable support in the European Parliament—including, critically, from Guy Verhofstadt, the lead Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament. Indeed, I understand that the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), has had discussions with Mr Verhofstadt on that issue. I would be grateful to learn from the Minister in his response whether that issue was discussed yesterday with Mr Verhofstadt during his visit to London. The idea has also gained the support of the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs.

I sense, perhaps wrongly, that the British Government have an open mind to what we are proposing today. I am being kind, because it has been a very good-natured debate so far. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, in response to the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy)—who I am delighted to see in his place and thank for his contribution, which hit the nail on the head—said:

“The aim of this exercise is to be good for Europe and good for Britain, which means good for the citizens of Europe and Britain. That is what we intend to do.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2017; Vol. 630, c. 947.]

In her speech last Friday at Mansion House, the Prime Minister failed to provide any great clarity on some of the main issues that have concerned Members in relation to the British Government’s Brexit policy. However, a part of her speech did catch my attention, when she conceded that, despite her hard Brexit policy, she would seek to negotiate UK associate membership status with several EU agencies.

[Anna Soubry]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the benefits of our remaining in the single market and the customs union. However, I disagree with him when he says that the Prime Minister’s policy is to have a hard Brexit. If one thing absolutely came out of the Mansion House, it was a firm rejection of a hard Brexit. Does he at least agree with me on that?

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am always delighted to hear from the right hon. Lady, with whom I work very closely on these matters. However, I fear that the Prime Minister in her speech managed to continue the strategy of trying to placate both sides of the Conservative party. Ultimately, she is going to have to make a call one way or the other. The fact that the right hon. Lady welcomed the speech and the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) welcomed the speech—

[David T. C. Davies]

And me.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman also did so. The fact that they both welcomed the speech leaves me concerned that the Prime Minister is not exactly making a definitive decision on those major issues, on which the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and I actually agree.

As I was saying, the Prime Minister conceded in her speech that she would seek associate membership of several EU agencies. If that is the case, why not apply the same principle to citizenship? Since Plaid Cymru launched our campaign on this issue at the weekend, my Twitter feed has become the location for a lively debate. Indeed, earlier this afternoon I was called a traitor by some people, which indicates the strength of feeling that the debate has generated.

[David T. C. Davies]

I respect the hon. Gentleman, and I totally condemn anyone who has referred to him in that fashion for expressing his views, just as I am sure he would do in relation to those on the other side. We all have a duty here to be courteous in our debate.

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[Jonathan Edwards]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. This debate is so serious that it needs to be debated in a very reasonable, calm and rational manner, as we have seen in the House today.

Most people have been extremely supportive of what we are suggesting, but others have seen the campaign as a plot to undermine the referendum result, which could not of course be further from the truth. What we are proposing is that, as part of the negotiations, the British Government make the case that those of us who wish to keep our current rights are able to do so, while those who wish to renounce their rights would also be able to do so if they so wished. If the British Government are serious about healing the wounds of the referendum, I argue that they should pursue such an initiative with vigour, because it could unite everybody in every part of the British state.

The key point is that the rights we currently enjoy under the Maastricht treaty do not in any way challenge or undermine our rights as subjects of the British state. This point was made with vigour by my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion. They are additional rights, and any action by a Government to take away those rights is an extremely serious matter. It is therefore no wonder that this issue is now before the courts in Europe.

As someone who fundamentally believes in Welsh independence, I recognise that, following the political freedom of my country, there will be a requirement to protect the rights currently enjoyed by the people of our respective countries, as was of course the case following Irish independence. I think that answers the point raised by the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton)—he is no longer in his place—in his intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon.

In his article in The New European at the weekend, Professor Volker Roeben, who was formerly of the University of Swansea but now works in Dundee in Scotland—I am delighted to see him here—makes the case quite clearly that international and EU law should protect our current EU citizenship from Brexit. I understand that legal opinions differ and I readily admit that I am no legal expert, but he makes a compelling case. I would like to finish my speech by quoting him at some length. He said:

“Of course, a member state is free to terminate its membership for the future, but it cannot extinguish the citizenships that have already been created and the rights that have been exercised—these continue. This status cannot not be taken away neither by the European Union nor by one of its member states.

This is also the impetus of the international law of treaties laid down in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This international law will be binding on the EU, the UK and the remaining member states after Brexit. It governs in considerable detail the consequences that the withdrawal of a state from any treaty, including the Founding Treaties, entail.

One consequence is that the treaty ceases to bind, but the other is that the withdrawal must not have retroactive effect on the rights of individuals already created at the time of withdrawal.”

This results in a challenge to the European Commission and, as I readily admit, to the British Government. My understanding is that the European Parliament is far more understanding of the case than the Commission. If this is the case, then MEPs will have an important role in scrutinising the negotiating tactics of Mr Barnier and his team. At the end of the day, as Professor Roeben states, it is a matter of political will. I hope that, following this debate, Parliament will support the motion and mandate the British Government to negotiate a protection of the rights we all currently enjoy as European citizens.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I now have to announce the results of today’s deferred Divisions. In respect of the question relating to Northern Ireland political parties, the Ayes were 308 and the Noes were 261, so the Ayes have it. In respect of the question relating to passport fees, the Ayes were 317 and the Noes were 258, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division lists are published at the end of today’s debates.]