Update on the Progress of EU Exit Negotiations

Debate between Lord Green of Deddington and Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The noble Baroness is of course right to pursue the matter of what has been discussed. There was an over three-hour presentation by the UK technical group challenging line by line the treaty basis—the various regulations and directives, all of which were listed in the paper to which Monsieur Barnier referred in last week’s press conference, at which I believe I heard him say that the Commission had a link to the legal bases for all on that list. In fact that was not quite accurate; there are two entries in the published list where there is no reference. That is what we are testing; the Commission goes and looks at the exact wording of the treaty, but what we are saying is that one needs to look also at how that is applied to people as well. Still, we are also challenging the legal basis itself.

[Lord Green of Deddington (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the EU side is continuing to insist that EU citizens in the UK after Brexit should continue to have the same free-movement rights as they have now, guaranteed by the European Court of Justice? If so, does she recognise that this would put EU citizens in a position of having much better rights with regard to bringing spouses and independent relatives into the UK than British citizens? Do the Government believe that this could remotely be acceptable to the public, or indeed feasible?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The noble Lord is right in his presumption that the European Commission is currently saying that the EU citizens who remain here should have better rights regarding bringing family members in in future than would be available to British citizens. Again, this is an area where we are looking very carefully at the detail. We have tried to ensure that families who are here at the time of leaving can ensure that they continue to operate as a family. It is a matter of how you define that. That is what our paper was doing earlier this year. I can say to the noble Lord that we are looking carefully at these issues. It is important that, overall, people should be able to get on with their lives. My goodness, they can be so complicated. Our family structures are so different and etiolated these days. It takes a lot of technical detail to be able to discuss how to resolve a way forward for both sides.