Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Jack Brereton

Thursday 14th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Blomfield]

Q May I move to a different area—the right of appeal? You expressed concern about it earlier, and I assume that you also expressed your views about it fairly robustly in consultation with the Home Office. I guess that the Home Office would have said in reply that there was the option to pursue administrative review and judicial review. What was your reaction to that?

Professor Smismans: There are two issues. On the one hand, if there is a withdrawal agreement, it will require a right of appeal—at least, I hope that if there is a withdrawal agreement implementation Bill, that will be one of the things explicit in it. We do not know whether there will be a withdrawal agreement, and from what I hear there is no clear promise that we would get a right of appeal without one. I am an EU lawyer, not an immigration lawyer, so I am relying mainly on what I have heard from my colleagues in immigration, but we know that there have been considerable problems with how administrative review has worked in the past. It means the Home Office having to judge itself. That might be fine as a first access point or a first way to resolve things, if it works, but it is not enough; we need judicial review and the right of appeal on top.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Q Obviously you are here to particularly represent those EU citizens who are currently living in the UK, but may I ask you the same question that I asked some of our panellists this morning about British citizens living in the EU? Do you think that all the EU countries have been doing everything possible and taking adequate steps to guarantee the rights of British citizens living in the EU?

Professor Smismans: No, they definitely have not. That is why it is so important that we get the withdrawal agreement or, if there is no withdrawal agreement, that we get a separate citizens’ rights agreement. What we have been asking for is that the citizens’ rights part of the withdrawal agreement be ring-fenced and adopted. The withdrawal agreement was agreed between the EU Commission and the UK Government; it did not pass in Parliament, but citizens’ rights were not the debated issue. If the withdrawal agreement fails, it will be because of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and the wider issue of where the future relationship is going, not because of citizens’ rights.

The best way to safeguard our rights is through the withdrawal agreement or, in the event of the failure of the withdrawal agreement, to have a separate citizens’ rights agreement under article 50. That would mean that British citizens in the European Union were protected at a supranational level; they would not depend on 27 national rules, in the same way that we do not depend just on the UK. It is a kind of balancing act, in the way that there has been a reciprocal solution between the rights of EU citizens here and British citizens in the EU. That would remain in place for that category of people on both sides. That is the best guarantee.

In any case, issues such as social security co-ordination will require international treaties. You can resolve some issues unilaterally or set out some guarantees in primary legislation, but for the issue of British citizens in the EU, doing that would depend on all the countries at a national level. As we have seen recently, there is not much willingness among European Union member states to let the European Union do that. If there is no agreement, it will mainly be up to national solutions in each country. On social security, you would then have to negotiate agreements between the UK and the 27 countries separately. Surely that would not provide the protection that the withdrawal agreement or a separate citizens’ rights agreement could provide.