Kevin Foster
Main Page: Kevin Foster (Conservative - Torbay)Department Debates - View all Kevin Foster's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Nokes
The Government will bring forward their plans to end free movement as soon as possible.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Many EU citizens in Torbay will be listening to this debate and wondering what the future is for them. Does the Minister agree that they should be reassured that although the Government’s goal is to get a deal, if they do not, EU citizens’ rights will be protected, so they should dismiss some of the scaremongering that we have heard?
Caroline Nokes
One of the most important parts of that guarantee is to demonstrate that we are already putting EU citizens through the settled status scheme. We have opened it up to a much larger cohort and, between now and the end of the year, in the region of 250,000 to 350,000 people will be eligible to go through the scheme. I should say that I do not anticipate our hitting that level of numbers, but we will be able to test the scheme at an enormous scale. It is important that we have made that commitment and we want EU citizens to stay.