European Union Citizenship

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams]

I can only say, frankly, that my ambition and that of my hon. Friends is to ensure that Wales has an independent future. That may mean that we are reconciled to a British identity as a multiple identity for now, and hon. Members will know all about this—one can allegedly be Welsh and British, which is an argument that I hear from Members on both sides of the House, or Welsh and European, which is our argument. I certainly feel Welsh and European.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

This goes to the crux of the argument. We are talking about our rights as individuals and the identity of individuals. I speak as a Londoner born and bred. I live in Wales and I claim Welsh nationality, and I am also proud of being European, but our rights as individuals are under threat. That is the point we have brought to the Chamber.

[Hywel Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was going to go on to say that this is more than just a matter of self-ascribed identity. It is about the real practical matters of the rights to travel and work—the European rights that have benefited people in Wales and throughout the UK. There is an argument about identity, and I will talk about that in a moment, but I do not think that it has the force that the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) seemed to imply.

I was talking about Gwynfor Evans, who would often remind us of three pillars of Owain Glyndŵr’s policy during the 15th-century war of independence, as related to the King of France in the Pennal letter, which some people will have seen when it was on a visit to Aberystwyth some years ago. He said to the King of France that one of the central pillars was the need for a direct relationship with Rome for the Church in Wales—it was a very long time ago, and that was important then. It was about a direct relationship with the overarching European institution, rather than an indirect link mediated through Canterbury—some people will hear the echoes of the current situation in that policy.

By the way, the other two pillars of Glyndŵr’s policy were for Welsh to be the state language and for two universities to be established at a time when they were first being established across Europe by ambitious leaders. Some 600 years later, we have excellent universities in Wales. We are nearly there on the language issue, but on the European issue we are taking a serious step back.

From the start, my party took inspiration from continental developments of economic and social co-operation, as exemplified in the writings of D. J. Davies. We found European multilingualism far more congenial than the stifling monolingualism of so much of the UK’s public life. I say in passing that right hon. and hon. Members may not know that the most recent meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee was held here in Westminster with simultaneous translation. Half those who spoke did so partly or wholly in Welsh. No one was hurt. Revolution did not break out. Hansard published what I think is its very first wholly bilingual record—I should mention that the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) spoke in Welsh, and I congratulate him sincerely on his efforts—but that reflection of the actual linguistic condition common in these islands is still very much the remarked-upon exception, rather than the rule. That is not so over much of the rest of our continent.

Turning to present times, given our radical political stance, Plaid Cymru has always supported the growth and development of European policies beyond the narrow confines of the common market, which we initially joined. Ordinary people across the UK have derived so much benefit from those social, workforce and environmental policies, and EU citizenship is, for me, in that category. Importantly for our country, the EU has an overt regional economic cohesion policy, from which Wales has derived substantial additional funding. Of course, it is a cruel irony that we benefit thus only because of our poverty and our economy performing so badly, on a par with regions of the former Soviet bloc at the eastern end of the European Union.

In passing, I must also refer to other EU measures such as Interreg Europe, which promotes inter-regional contact between Wales and Ireland. Wales faces west as well as east, although many people, including Government Ministers, sometimes do not realise that. My colleague, the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), used to say occasionally that Holyhead was east Dublin rather than north-west Anglesey. We have also benefited from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Erasmus programme on student exchange, to name just three from which Wales along with other parts of the UK has benefited, and in respect of which, I say to the Minister, there is much concern, not least at our universities, and I mention my own, Bangor University.

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[Hywel Williams]

That is exactly the point I intend to make.

Many young people told me after the referendum that the result had been a profound emotional shock, an assault on the very foundations of their personal identities as Europeans, one telling me that she had been in floods of tears. They told me how they regretted losing key practical rights—this is not just an emotional identity matter—such as the right to travel without hindrance within the EU and the unqualified right to work and to study in other European countries. Today the UK Government have an opportunity to heal some of these divisions—intergenerational divisions and divisions between all peoples of these islands, particularly, as we have heard, in Ireland.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I am sure that my hon. Friend shares my concern that many of these young people now coming of age, who will be most directly affected by our leaving the EU, had no say whatsoever. From year to year, this situation is worsening.

[Hywel Williams]

My hon. Friend makes a telling point to which I will return in a moment and which is covered by the two aspects of citizenship that we are proposing. The first concerns continuing citizenship for those of us who are citizens of the EU now by means of a bilateral treaty. The second concerns those who, being unborn, cannot access that citizenship—this is a matter for our children and our children’s children. Particularly acute, however, for me at least, is the position of those aged 14, 15 and 16 who understood the issues in the referendum but were unable to vote. I should say in passing that my party has always been in favour of reducing the voting age to 16, which would have made a considerable difference to the result.

As I said, today the UK Government have an opportunity to heal some of these divisions. This is a positive point from the Plaid Cymru Benches, and I hope that the Government see it in that light. We are calling on them to secure and retain our right to European citizenship and not to take away what is already rightfully ours, so that we might leave the EU with just a little less self-inflicted injury.

We are European citizens, although I have to confess that I am biased: I am married to a European citizen—she is from Llanelli. She likewise is married to a European citizen—I am from Pwllheli. I do not want to labour the point, but we are both Welsh and European. I am therefore biased, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) said, so are our many friends and colleagues who have chosen to live and work in Wales and become Welsh, but not by rejecting their European citizenship or identity. To quote Gwynfor Evans again:

“Anyone can be Welsh, so long as you are prepared to take the consequences.”

That is our definition of citizenship. The citizens of Wales are those who are committed. I would commend that as a general definition of civic identity—I suppose I should say “civic nationalism”, but perhaps I should let that pass.

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[Hywel Williams]

I must confess that I was entirely unaware of the issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised. If that is indeed the case, I think that it bears more examination, and I should be interested to discuss it with him further.

I was talking about Irish citizens and those of Irish extraction. There is a certain serendipity in the fact that UK-Irish citizens have those rights on the basis of one grandparent while the rest of us do not. There will be people like me with British citizenship, people of Irish extraction with Irish citizenship, Irish people with Irish citizenship who live, work and vote here, and EU citizens with a certain status, whatever that may be. There is a certain randomness about the whole arrangement, which would in some respects be addressed by an overarching European citizenship. I fear that that serendipity will inevitably become more pressing when those with the favoured passports join the short queue at holiday airports while their less fortunate neighbours wait in the “others” line. It will have hit us a bit harder by then.

The Government say that they want a close relationship with our EU partners. That is their ambition, cited over and over again. They now have a practical opportunity to support that relationship through continuation citizenship for current British EU citizens, and, for all those who will not be EU citizens at the point of our leaving—that is, the unborn—a future status through associate EU citizenship.

So far the debate has been dominated by trade issues, the divorce bill and the Irish border—those are the issues with which we have been grappling for many months—but many Brexit promises before the referendum had an individualistic quality. People felt that they were being promised something individually. We would be richer and have better services, not least through having an extra £350 million every week to spend on the NHS. Promises such as that persuaded people, along with, of course, the immigration issue.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

We were also promised that we would be freer, with all the implications of independence. We are having to discuss this issue today because we must face the fact that we are unlikely to be so free.

[Hywel Williams]

The paradox has not escaped me.

Here is a chance for the Government to redeem themselves partially by securing for all UK individuals in the future that which they already have: UK and European citizenship. That would be popular. According to research findings published last year by the LSE and Opinium, six out of 10 people want to keep their EU citizenship. Support for retaining rights is particularly strong among 18 to 24-year-olds, 85% of whom want to retain their EU citizenship. They are the generation, more than any other, that will have to deal with the long-term fallout from Brexit over the coming decades, and to deal practically and emotionally with the loss of their firm expectation of continuing EU citizenship. Many members of that generation did not have a vote in the referendum, although they will be profoundly affected by its consequences—unless, of course, the Government take heed of our argument today. Thankfully, it is not my responsibility to drum up support for the Conservatives, but were the Government just to look to their own enlightened self-interest, they would see that at least one path is clear from the debate. If they will not do so, can we at least expect the Labour party to see where its interest lies, to support the motion, and to protect our people’s rights?

I am advised by wiser heads that there would be no new treaty requirements, so now is the time for the Government to give a clear and practical sign that they are taking UK citizens’ rights seriously—not by withdrawing our rights without our explicit consent, but by securing European Union citizenship for all, not just the random few. What is needed now, and what is currently lacking, is vision and clear political leadership to mend some of the divisions that Brexit has opened up. In the Prime Minister’s own words last Monday,

“let us get on with it.”—[Official Report, 5 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 28.]

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[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.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Does the right hon. Lady not agree that we are talking about an interpretation of the law as it stands and a matter of political will? We would be begging the Government to bring this matter, as the right of individual citizens of the United Kingdom, into negotiations as we move forward with Brexit?

[Caroline Nokes]

As I said just a moment ago, the Government position is that we are very happy to discuss this specific issue, but we must do so reflecting on the law as it currently stands, and the position in law is very clear: once we have left the EU, citizens living here will no longer be resident in an EU member state.

The Prime Minister has been clear, and she reinforced this message in her speech on Friday, that we are seeking the broadest and deepest possible future partnership with the EU, and that a key part of that is maintaining the links between our people. We are clear that, as we leave the EU, free movement of people will come to an end and we will control the number of people who come to live in our country, but UK citizens will still want to work and study in EU countries, just as EU citizens will want to do the same here, which is why the Prime Minister is putting the interests of EU and UK citizens at the heart of her approach, and we are open to discussing how to facilitate these valuable links.

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[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.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I have much sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has to say, but it does not relate to the motion, which is about the future rights of UK citizens. There is an interesting discussion to be had about the rights of EU citizens coming into the UK, but that is for another debate.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I have responded to the point made from the hon. Member for Arfon about that. I appreciate the narrow point about UK citizens going forward, but this is a broad debate and I am sure that the hon. Lady would not want to lose the opportunity to put such matters to the Minister, as I am seeking to do.

I conclude by saying that an unconditional commitment on the rights of EU citizens in this country could have been made already. It can still be offered, and the Government should move away from their obsession with numbers and restore confidence in our immigration system.

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[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Dirprwy Lefarydd. It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) for his introduction to the debate.

I start by stating the obvious. We are not subjects; we are citizens, and as such we are individuals who consent to the rule of Government. The Government rule in accordance with the will of the citizens. We are citizens and we are individuals, and Brexit has consequences for our lives as individuals whether we voted to leave or to remain. I echo exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion said: surely this debate offers an opportunity to heal divisions within our society and to respect both sides of the referendum vote divide, by respecting individuals and permitting them to choose.

As individuals, we stand to lose our heritage as European citizens—a heritage we might not even have been aware was in our possession, a family treasure forgotten at the back of the display cabinet and about to be discarded in the bitter acrimony of divorce. It is to my surprise that it has taken an Opposition day debate initiated by Plaid Cymru to focus in depth on the wide-reaching implication of the loss we face, and I would like to take the opportunity to thank Professor Volker Roeben and my colleague Jill Evans MEP, who have highlighted both the desirability and the legality of our rights as European citizens, and to thank the thousands who have signed Plaid Cymru’s petition in the past two days.

However—this needs to be emphasised, and we need to use the language of Brexit—Brexit must not mean treating individual citizens as vassals, under obligation to our political masters, who might strip us of our citizenship at their whim. It is worth all of us who are speaking in favour of this proposal emphasising that it is clearly permissible in international law. Citizens’ rights are not the Government’s gift to trade, according to the 1969 Vienna convention on treaties. While an EU member state is democratically free to terminate its EU membership, it cannot extinguish the individual status of citizenship, nor its associated rights, without the consent of the individual.

Is there a precedent for this? We have heard a number of precedents already, and I should like to focus on one. We have lived with it for so long that we possibly do not really appreciate or see its value. Following the creation of Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State—now, of course, the Republic of Ireland—politicians debated the implications of how where people lived affected their rights as citizens. Irish citizens who reside in the UK while still remaining Irish citizens enjoy all the benefits of UK citizenship, including the freedom to take up residence and employment in the UK. Irish citizens can play a full part in UK political life, including voting in parliamentary elections and seeking membership of this House. The Republic of Ireland also offers citizenship to all residents of the island of Ireland, and people who are citizens of the UK are entitled to residency in Ireland without any conditions or restrictions. Unlike citizens of other countries, UK citizens are not subject to Ireland’s Aliens Act 1935. That means that a UK citizen does not need a visa or any form of residence permit or employment permit in Ireland. We are entitled to move to Ireland from any country, and we may move to Ireland to work or to retire.

[Joanna Cherry]

Is the hon. Lady, like me, visited in her regular constituency surgeries by many people who are currently British citizens who are lucky enough to have an Irish parent and are looking for an MP’s signature on their Irish passport application?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I wonder whether the way this operates in Ireland might be a model for an opt-in pattern for us to think about if we take this issue through to the next stage of making practical considerations.

Unlike other EU citizens, UK citizens may retire to Ireland without having to establish whether we have sufficient resources or are in possession of health insurance. In fact, if we are visiting Ireland we do not even need a European health insurance card to get healthcare services—only a passport or some form of identification to prove UK citizenship.

Interestingly, that did not happen without parliamentary debate and intervention 96 years ago, much of it initiated, interestingly, by the Conservatives and Unionists of that time. I quote from Hansard of 26 June 1922, when Colonel John Gretton—Conservative, Burton—asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies

“whether acceptance of the status of a citizen of the Irish Free State, under…Clause 3 of the suggested Constitution for Southern Ireland,”

would deprive

“the person so accepting of his rights as a British subject in Ireland”.

To which Mr Winston Churchill—for it was he—replied:

“The answer is in the negative.”

Mr Gideon Oliphant-Murray, a Unionist MP from Glasgow, pressed the question:

“Is it not a fact that a citizen of a British Dominion is, ipso facto, a British subject?”

To which Mr Churchill replied:

“So will he be in the Irish Free State.”

Mr Oliphant-Murray:

“That is not the case.”

But Mr Churchill was having nothing of it:

“It is the case.”—[Official Report, 26 June 1922; Vol. 155, c. 1663.]

If Winston Churchill felt the need to ensure that individuals should not be stripped of their wished-for citizenship in 1922, surely Conservative Members are honour-bound and loyalty-bound to respect the citizens of 2018 in a similar fashion. All it took was an expression of will on the part of the Conservatives and Unionists of the time and the rights to vote for the Westminster Parliament, as well as the rights of abode and work, were safeguarded. Political will was also brought to bear in relation to Hong Kong, with the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990 and the subsequent 1997 Act, which allowed non-Chinese ethnic minorities to acquire full British citizenship.

I raise these as examples of political need but also flexibility, initiative and a respect for the individual caught up in the crossfire of state game-playing. This is a matter of political will, indicative of what the Government respect—the simplistic legal interpretation of Brexit zealots, which just so happens to bolster an ideological adherence, or the quiet right of citizens to express their will in accordance with international law. I wonder whether the Government took the opportunity to raise this matter with Guy Verhofstadt when he visited yesterday, and who I note also supports our proposal.

This is not an abstract concept or a nicety of legalese. My daughter Lowri has been able to action her right to live and work in France and Spain without constraint, just as I, somewhat longer ago, was able to action my right to study alongside Irish students in Ireland. I speak for many, many of my constituents when I say that we are proud to exercise our rights as citizens of Wales and citizens of Europe. The state may present its citizens with a referendum and then seek to interpret the frankly uninterpretable result, but it may not strip us of our rights. How our laws are made may change, but that does not give this place the legitimacy to interfere with my children’s rights as autonomous individual citizens. What of those young people who were not of an age to vote in 2016? Who are we to say that they may not have the choice that was tacitly agreed in the newly forged relationship with Ireland back in 1922—the choice to opt into a layered citizenship that reflects their individual choice of identity, as Welsh, Scottish, English, and European?

Anyone with a grasp of the history of Wales will know that our country’s very name in English deliberately implies two things: first, that we are different—foreign. But the root of the word was used by the Anglo-Saxons not only to imply foreign, but to imply Roman associations. Wales’s links with Europe are indivisible from the name imposed on us. Not all of us will recall that we were citizens of Rome 1,600 years ago, but many of us would remain European citizens in the 21st century.

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[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. Of course, in our joint report we made specific commitments on the Irish border that we absolutely stand by.

It has been the Government’s policy from the very beginning to provide certainty and stability for UK citizens who have made their lives in the EU and for EU citizens here in the UK. As the Prime Minister set out at Mansion House last week, EU citizens are an integral part of the economic, cultural and social fabric of our county, which is why we made it a priority to secure in the first phase of the negotiations a fair deal on citizens’ rights that will allow for UK and EU citizens to continue their lives broadly as they do now.

As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration detailed earlier in the debate—

[Liz Saville Roberts]

rose—

[Mr Walker]

I will give way to the hon. Lady after I have made this point, if I may.

The comprehensive agreement that we secured in December grants citizens certainty about a wide range of rights, including residents’ healthcare, which was highlighted by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins), as well as pensions and other benefits. That means that UK nationals who are living in the EU at the point of exit will continue to benefit from rights that stem from their EU citizenship today. After our exit, those rights will be provided for by the withdrawal agreement, which will enshrine them and take the status of international law, having direct effect in EU member states. They will also be written into UK law by Parliament, through the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I hope the Minister will forgive me for taking him back to a point he made earlier, but if the proposal for the citizens of Northern Ireland is suitable for them, why is it not suitable for the citizens of Wales, Scotland and England?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady raises a good point. She touched on some of the history in her speech and I was very interested in her historical references. There are long-standing commitments that the UK has made to the citizens of all of Ireland, and we built on those in the Belfast Good Friday agreement. I shall return to them towards the end of my speech. We have to recognise that those provisions were brought about by unique circumstances that date back long before our membership of the EU.

The Government have shown that we have listened to calls to provide certainty to EU citizens in the UK, by ensuring that citizens will be able to rely directly on the rights enshrined in the withdrawal agreement through the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, which will be introduced to Parliament after the withdrawal agreement has been finalised. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration mentioned, we have listened to feedback from communities throughout the UK on the process of acquiring settled status. We have been clear that the new application scheme will be digital, streamlined and user-friendly. We are consulting regularly with EU citizens’ user groups and employers as we design the system.

On the point made by the hon. Member for North East Fife, we will make sure that those who undertake overseas postings, including military service in our armed forces, will not be disadvantaged.