UK Nationals in the EU: Rights

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I apologise, Mr Streeter. I mean no discourtesy to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), the Opposition spokesman, my hon. Friend the Minister or you, but the curse of conflicting appointments has landed on me, and I must be elsewhere at 3.30. I will stay and hear as much as I can of the debate in the meantime.

I am acutely aware of the importance of the EU citizens employed in my constituency. If I removed the EU citizens among the ancillary staff in my hospital—never mind the highly qualified surgeons and others—the hospital would shut. If I removed the equivalent people from the care homes in my constituency, those would shut. If I removed the Lithuanian bakers from Speciality Breads, an excellent and award-winning company in my constituency, that company would have great difficulty finding replacements. The largest greenhouse complex in Europe is in my constituency. It is the size of about six football pitches and grows tomatoes hydroponically, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Those tomatoes are harvested by Poles and Romanians. Why? Despite my requests and the company’s endeavours, it cannot recruit British labour to do the job, not because of price but because it is hard work and there are not enough people available to do it.

I accept entirely the arguments about the necessary people—not merely the highly qualified and skilled, but the semi-skilled and unskilled—from the European Union and beyond who work, live, enjoy life and pay taxes in this country. However, this debate is about the plight—I use the word advisedly—of United Kingdom expat citizens living in what will be the remaining 27 member states of the European Union. Most of them are in France and Spain; significant numbers are in Italy and Greece, and there are many others dotted around.

There is an imbalance of about three to one between European Union citizens living in the United Kingdom and Brits living throughout the rest of the European Union. Moreover, the European Union citizens—by and large, but not exclusively—are working. The overwhelming majority of the UK citizens are retired, so they have much less room for manoeuvre, and they are very frightened people.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I have certainly seen evidence to suggest that the age profile of UK citizens living overseas is different from that of EU nationals living in the UK. What is the evidence for the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that the overwhelming majority of UK citizens in the rest of the EU are retired? I think those were his exact words.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I think I am right that the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) referred to the House of Commons Library, which provided those statistics, but my evidence is from my own eyes—

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on the considered way he presented his thoughts. This aspect of Brexit is incredibly important. It is about the reciprocal arrangement that needs to be in place to ensure that the people who live, work and play a part in our local economy can and will continue to do so, as will British nationals living and working in the EU and making contributions to their local economy.

Hon. Members know that I supported leaving the EU. I am a confirmed Brexiteer and my constituency is of the same mind, but I recognise the issues for EU nationals in my constituency. It seems the situation will be mutually beneficial—indeed, that is what the figures indicate. As usual when it comes to European issues, Britain gives more than it receives. The latest available data suggest that in 2015 there were around 1.2 million British citizens living in EU countries compared with 3.2 million EU citizens living in the UK. It is not hard to work out that it is in everyone’s interest to make arrangements to continue to benefit those who are working.

[Peter Grant]

I am puzzled and a little concerned about the hon. Gentleman’s analysis. The claim that Britain gives more than it receives in relation to EU migration falls back on the fact that there are more EU nationals in the UK than there are UK nationals in the EU. That implies that immigrants take from communities rather than put back into them, but in my constituency, immigrants who have come into Glenrothes in the centre of Fife from the European Union have contributed greatly. I want them to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

[Jim Shannon]

In two seconds I will be saying the same thing. I have been very clear from the outset of Brexit that our leaving Europe is not a purge of non-British people from our shores. It is the ability to ensure that those who come here and make the most of what we have to offer also give back locally. In the two major sectors of agri-food in my constituency of Strangford, 40% or 50% of the workforce is European. They are needed, so we sought assurances from the Prime Minister. When the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, she visited my constituency at my invitation. She understood the issues, although we did not get assurances from the Prime Minister or the Minister at the time.

It is important to mention that the people who live in the Republic of Ireland can travel across to Northern Ireland to work, and people in Northern Ireland can travel across to the Republic of Ireland to work. The hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), who spoke earlier, referred to nurses in hospitals and care workers. Such matters are important for me as well.

The current system as described in the briefing paper shows that free movement is central to the concept of EU citizenship. It is a right enjoyed by all citizens of the European Union. All EU citizens have a right to reside in another EU member state for up to three months without any conditions other than the requirement to hold a valid identity card or passport. After three months certain conditions apply, depending on the status of the EU citizen and whether they are a worker or a student. Those who opt to exercise their free movement rights are protected against discrimination in employment on the ground of nationality. The provisions in relation to social security are clear. EU citizens who have resided legally for a continuous period of five years in another EU member state automatically acquire the right to permanent residence. To qualify for permanent residence, students and the self-sufficient must possess comprehensive sickness insurance cover throughout the five-year period. I mention the stats because it is important to have them on the record.

It is clear that the Government’s White Paper that was published in June, which sets out proposals for the status and rights of EU citizens in the UK after the UK's exit from the EU, allows for those who are EU citizens present in the UK before a cut-off date and with five years’ continuous residence in the UK to apply for a new settled status that is akin to an indefinite leave to remain. I need the provisions to continue in my constituency.

I am conscious of time, so I will conclude. I know we are all aware of these points, but they bear repeating out loud. I do not see how anyone can have a problem with securing our shores and ensuring that those who live here, work here and pay in here have protection. By the same token, it should naturally apply that those who live and work in Europe should have the same protections. I know that the Minister is a fair, honourable and compassionate man. I look to him for a way forward, to alleviate the fears of hon. Members on this side of the Chamber. My mum was a great person—mums are great people, because they always tell stories about what is important. She always said that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If we are going to allow 3 million people to remain here to live and work, surely 1 million Brits in the rest of the EU can do the same.

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[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Like many who have spoken today I appreciate the chance to speak in the debate, but am deeply angry that it is still necessary, because the questions should have been settled on 24 June, not left unsettled and uncertain 15 months later.

I do not see any conflict, or any need for a trade-off, between the rights of people from one country living in another and the rights of people from that other country living in the first. The UK Government should have unilaterally and immediately moved to give absolute guarantees, not to give rights to European Union nationals living here but to respect the rights they already have and always will have, and they should have done so not to use that as a bargaining position or a negotiating manoeuvre but because it was morally and ethically the right thing to do. The Governments of the other EU nations, individually and collectively, should also have moved quickly, to give unconditional guarantees to respect the rights of UK citizens living in their countries, not because it would have looked good on the negotiating table but, again, because it was morally and ethically the right thing to do.

However, we should not lose sight of the fact that the majority of the burden to fix the mess must rest with the UK Government; let us face it, the UK Parliament created this mess. No one in Europe asked for an EU referendum. No one in Europe asked the Prime Minister to make the unilateral decision that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market—that was not even a question on the referendum. We have never had a vote by the people of these islands on whether they want to leave the single market, or whether they want to give up on the benefits of the free movement of people.

I do not have time to comment on all the contributions we have had, but we have heard many interesting comments from Members on both sides of the Chamber, complimenting, for example, the significant benefits that EU citizens bring to each and every one of our constituents. I was disappointed that the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), who is no longer in his place, propounded and compounded the old myth that the vast majority of people from the UK who live abroad are retired, with the implication that somehow they do not really contribute to their host nations. They do. Their contribution is different perhaps to that of EU nationals to the UK, but it is still a contribution, and such people are often greatly valued by the countries in which they live.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that walking away with no deal threatens Scotland’s world-leading higher education and research sector? Our researchers have to be able to move freely to the EU, and European researchers to our universities and research centres, so that we benefit mutually from the expertise.

[Peter Grant]

I absolutely agree, and it is not only Scotland’s exceptional universities that are under threat; every research-based university and institution in the United Kingdom is in danger of losing out because of short-sighted folly.

One thing the debate has demonstrated is the absolute folly of those, particularly on the Tory Benches, who still try to tell us that we could just walk away today without a deal and it would make no difference. What a betrayal that would be of the 4.5 million people who, right now, are worried about whether their basic human rights will be respected: the right to continue to live in the house they already live in, and the right for their children to keep going to the school they already go to and keep playing with the same friends. Those rights are not ours to give and take away; they are rights that people have because they are human beings. For Ministers even to use phrases like “bargaining chips” to deny that they are treating people as such, makes it clear that somewhere, deep down inside, that is part of the thinking.

Every time we have discussed in the Chamber the rights of EU nationals living in the United Kingdom, the chorus of protest from the Conservative Benches has always been, “We are very concerned about the rights of UK citizens and UK nationals living in the European Union.” Today, those Members have been given a full 90-minute debate in which to express those concerns, and where have they all gone? They can turn up in their hundreds in the middle of the night to vote for the process to start removing the rights of those UK nationals, but when it comes to speaking out for them it is another matter. I can understand that some of them had other things to do, but when 320 of them cannot stay for the full 90-minute debate, that tells us more about where their beliefs and values really lie than anything we might say.

It is now six months since the Brexit Secretary told us that reaching an agreement on the rights of nationals in each other’s countries would be

“the first thing on our agenda”.

He went on to say:

“I would hope that we would get some agreement in principle very, very soon, as soon as the negotiation process starts.”

We are now a third of the way through that negotiation process, and the Library, in analysing the joint technical note of 31 August 2017, has indicated that there are five areas on which agreement is close and 20 on which it is nowhere near. In other words, in one third of the available negotiating time the progress on our No. 1 priority is that 80% of it is nowhere close to being agreed. That is what happens when human beings are used as bargaining chips instead of saying, right at the beginning, “This is what we’re going to do because it’s the right thing to do.”

We should never forget that the position of the UK Government in relation to the two sets of citizens is very different: we can ask other people to respect the rights of UK nationals living overseas, but we can absolutely guarantee the rights of non-UK nationals living here. Once again, I repeat the call for the UK Government to do that, not because it might make the Europeans do something we want them to do but because morally it is the only acceptable course of action.

The debate should have concluded on 24 June. The reason it has not is that the Government’s obsession with being seen to get hard on immigration has got to the point where any price, but any price, is worth paying. The economic price of losing our membership of the single market will likely be counted in hundreds of thousands of jobs and losses of tens—possibly hundreds—of billions of pounds to our economy.

[Deidre Brock]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the insurance giant, Chubb, is just one of the latest large companies to announce plans to move their headquarters from London—to Paris, in this instance—after Brexit. Would he consider it likely that those EU nationals who can still come to the UK—and still want to—might not have jobs to come to?

[Peter Grant]

It is not just that they might not have jobs to come to; the question is why on earth they would want to come when they look at the welcome they get from a leaked Government draft proposal that wants to start discriminating against people depending on the letters after their name, or when they have seen the unbridled joy on the faces of Government supporters when it was announced that every week since the referendum has seen a reduction of 1,000 in net migration from the European Union. In other words, the Government’s message to EU nationals is, “We are going to say that you’re welcome, but we’re actually happy that every week 1,000 people just like you have given up on the UK and gone to live somewhere else because they no longer feel they have a welcome future on these islands.” That should make us all feel utterly ashamed.

At its heart, the European Union was set up primarily as a trade union, an economic union. It is described as a political union, which it clearly is not. Fundamentally and most importantly, the European Union is now a social union, about the ever closer union of the peoples of Europe. Who could possibly want to see further division between those peoples? Union between the peoples of Europe should be what we all strive for. The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) hit the nail on the head perfectly in the first few minutes of her speech—and, indeed, in the rest of it. We have spent far too long talking about constitutions and politics, quotas and legislations, and not enough talking about human beings. Today, we are talking particularly about the plight of well over a million human beings who just happen to have birth certificates that say they were born in these islands. Their rights are important, as are those of the 3 million people who live here but were born elsewhere, and those of the 60 million people who will have to cope with the aftermath of this mess, long after some of us are no longer here.

I hope that there is still time for the Government to wake up to the folly of what they are doing. It is not too late for them to say, “We have messed up completely; the only way to get out of this mess is to agree to remain in the single market and to agree that the free movement of citizens between the nations of Europe should continue in perpetuity”.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on calling this debate and I thank all those who have contributed. I hope I can provide some constructive clarification, as he challenged me to do. The future of UK nationals in the EU and EU citizens in the UK is an incredibly important issue, as we have heard from so many Members today.

All hon. Members here will be aware that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union have prioritised the strand of negotiations on citizens from the start of the negotiating process, and we have welcomed progress in those negotiations from the other side. It is essential that we provide certainty and continuity to the 4 million people affected—3 million EU citizens living in the UK and, as hon. Members have said, 1.2 million UK nationals living in the EU.

In June, we published our policy paper on safeguarding the position of EU citizens living in the UK and UK nationals living in the EU, which a number of hon. Members have referred to. It clearly set out the UK’s position across a number of key areas of citizens’ rights, including residency rights, access to benefits and public services, and—as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) just touched on—mutual recognition of professional qualifications. I want to reassure the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that the paper made it very clear that that was without prejudice to our commitment to the common travel area and arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Those areas are, of course, being dealt with in a separate strand of the negotiations, which is also making good progress.

We are all agreed that it is of great importance that we reach a swift resolution through negotiations with the European Union on citizens’ rights. We have been engaging on those matters at pace, and I hope I can show hon. Members that we are making progress. Hon. Members have focused today on the status and rights that UK nationals are afforded in the EU, but as many have said, it is important that we secure the rights of EU citizens choosing to make their lives in the UK as well.

Rights for UK nationals who have already built a life in the European Union have been a key focus of negotiations in the first few rounds. It is essential that we provide certainty and clarity on all the issues as soon as we can. We have held positive and constructive discussions and there is clearly a great deal of common ground between our respective positions. We have taken significant steps forward in both the July and August negotiation rounds. Someone suggested that we did not agree on two thirds of issues, and agreed on a third, but the reverse is true. In our published tables, there are many more green issues than red or yellow ones. Importantly, many of the areas in dispute are where the UK’s offer is currently going beyond that of the European Commission.

[Peter Grant]

I am happy to plead guilty to being the hon. Member in question. I think the figure that I quoted was 80% to 20%, taken directly from the House of Commons Library analysis of the August negotiations. Is he telling us that the Library researchers have got it wrong?

[Mr Walker]

I would never dare criticise the Library researchers, but we have agreed on more issues through July and August, and there are many more green issues in the papers than red ones.

As the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) set out, many UK nationals are worried about whether they will be able to continue to access healthcare in the member state they have settled in. That is why we have placed great importance on resolving that issue. In the August round, we agreed that we would protect existing healthcare rights and arrangements for those EU citizens in the UK, and UK nationals in the EU, present on the day of exit. That means that British residents and pensioners living in the EU will continue to have their healthcare arrangements protected both where they live and when they travel to another member state, by using their EHIC card, which the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate held up earlier.

We also set out our intention to continue to uprate pensions for UK citizens living in the EU, subject to a reciprocal agreement. We know that it is important for many UK nationals to be able to continue to work across borders after we exit—the hon. Member for Sheffield Central raised that point. That is why, in the last round of negotiations, we agreed that we should protect the rights of frontier workers, which I know is particularly important for the Gibraltar-Spain border.

On aggregation of social security contributions, we have agreed to protect social security contributions made before and after exit by those UK and EU nationals covered by the withdrawal agreement. That means where an individual has moved between the EU and the UK, their contributions will continue to be recognised—for example, when determining their state pension entitlements. As we have previously set out, such pensions will be uprated every year, as they are now.

Although we are making good progress, there of course remain areas of difference between our position and that of the EU. As shown in the joint technical note that was published on 31 August, it is clear that we want to go further than the EU in some areas. For example, the EU does not plan to maintain existing voting rights for UK nationals living in the EU, but we think that that is an important right. We want to protect the rights of EU nationals living in the UK to stand and vote in municipal elections, and the reciprocal voting rights that UK nationals enjoy when living in the EU.

The EU is also suggesting that UK nationals currently resident in the EU should not be able to retain onward movement rights if they decide to move within the EU. We have always been clear that we should seek to protect that right for UK nationals currently resident in EU member states, and we will continue to push for that during negotiations. Furthermore, we are seeking to ensure that individuals who have started but not finished their qualifications—as in one of the examples the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) gave, about a nurse in training—continue to have those qualifications recognised after we leave. We recognise that that is a hugely important issue for many UK nationals in the EU; we will return to it in future rounds of negotiations.

Progress in those areas will clearly require flexibility and pragmatism from both sides, but I am confident that we are close to agreeing a good deal for both UK nationals in the EU and EU citizens in the UK. A number of hon. Members touched on the important issue of family reunions. Our policy paper on citizens’ rights set out that family dependants who join a qualifying EU citizen in the UK before the UK’s exit will be able to apply for settled status after five years, irrespective of the specified date. We believe we have taken an expansive approach to the issue, and we hope that the EU will do the same for UK citizens. We remain open to exploring that and potential methods of dispute resolution over time with the EU, to understand their concerns and to look at all constructive suggestions.

We are, of course, keen to move on to discussions about our future relationship and the future partnership between the UK and the EU. I would like to respond to some of the remarks made by colleagues throughout the debate on the immigration system that the UK will implement once we withdraw from the EU. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) on that issue. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central said, I will not comment on leaked drafts; however, we have repeatedly been clear that we do not see the referendum result as a vote for the UK to pull up the drawbridge. We will remain an open and tolerant country, which recognises the valuable contribution that migrants make to our society.

Since the referendum, we have engaged with businesses up and down the country to build a strong understanding of the challenges and opportunities that our EU exit brings, including access to talent. We are very aware of the importance of future mobility in particular sectors. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West and the hon. Members for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) and for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) all mentioned the importance of research. I draw their attention to our recently published paper on science and research, in which we made it clear that researcher mobility is associated with better international networks, more research outputs, higher quality outputs and, for most, better career outcomes. We said in that paper that we will discuss with the EU future arrangements to facilitate the mobility of researchers engaged in cross-border collaboration.

The UK is a world leader in research collaboration and we recognise that the ability of UK citizens to travel within the EU, and EU citizens to contribute to our science base, is vital to that co-operation. We are carefully considering the options open to us. As part of that, it is important that we understand the impact of any changes we make to sectors of the economy. The Home Secretary has commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to build an evidence-based picture of the UK labour market to further inform that work.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet and a number of other hon. Members spoke passionately about the contribution of EU citizens to their constituencies, but it is right that the point has been made—by Members on both sides of the House—that UK citizens in the EU also make an important contribution. We will set out initial proposals for a new immigration system later in the autumn, and we will introduce an immigration Bill to ensure that Parliament has a full and proper opportunity to debate that system, which will apply to EU nationals in future.

Of course, many British citizens will also wish to live and work in the EU after the UK’s exit and we will discuss those arrangements with the EU in due course. Our embassies and ambassadors across the EU have engaged extensively with communities and expats in individual countries. Throughout this process, as we seek to reach agreement with the EU about citizens’ rights, we will want to do everything that we can to reassure those people.

The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) gave a couple of concerning examples from her constituency of people who are well established in this country and deserve that reassurance. If she writes to me or the Home Office about those cases, we will look into them in detail and make sure those people get the reassurance that they undoubtedly should receive. A number of hon. Members have mentioned the Home Office; I know an apology has been given for those letters. Throughout the negotiations, we will seek to secure the best deal possible for UK nationals—