UK Nationals in the EU: Rights

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter? I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this important debate and on his powerful opening speech.

I wish we were not having this debate. It is an absolute disgrace that, 15 months after the referendum and six months after article 50 was triggered, so little progress has been made on a reciprocal citizens’ rights deal, despite three rounds of negotiations between the Secretary of State and his European counterpart.

As the UK and EU’s joint technical note recently showed, there are still several areas of disagreement on the future rights of EU nationals here and UK nationals in the EU, including future family reunions, the cut-off point for settled status, rights of onward movement within the EU, and legal avenues to enforce rights. A British national who lives and works in Italy, for example, may move freely to other EU countries to live and work, but has no guarantee of maintaining those rights after Brexit, not least because our Government have not made a similar reciprocal offer. For example, a German university lecturer in my constituency—there are a number of them—is currently allowed to spend a few years working on a research project somewhere else in Europe and then come back freely to Durham to continue his work at the university, but we simply do not know whether he will be able to do so in future.

My second area of concern relates to the avenues of legal redress available to UK nationals living in the EU after Brexit. The Prime Minister seems to have an ideologically imposed red line regarding the role of the European Court of Justice after Brexit. If the UK leaves the EU and its courts, and the Government enshrine citizens’ rights in UK law, to be enforced by UK courts and some kind of independent monitor, UK nationals in the EU could lose the right to take cases to a higher European court. They will then have recourse only to the national courts of the country they are in, which may not be able to enforce the rights given by any agreement between the UK and the EU. Labour wants the Court of Justice of the European Union, or a similar court-like institution, to oversee compliance with any future agreement.

The Government could have made all this easier by making a unilateral offer to guarantee EU nationals in the UK their existing rights, which is what a Labour Government would do. That would not only have been the right thing to do morally, by providing assurances to the 3 million EU citizens who have made their lives in the UK and who have been left in a limbo and unsure as to their future status; it would also have been a good gesture with which to begin negotiations and would make it simpler to seek reciprocal rights for UK citizens in the EU. Instead, 3 million people living in the UK and 1.2 million UK nationals in the EU have been used as bargaining chips by the Government in their negotiations, which is simply outrageous.

We all know from work in our constituencies that EU nationals make a large contribution to our economy and society. As I mentioned in the Chamber yesterday, there are 2,500 European workers in the health and social care industry in the north-east, carrying out vital services in our community. However, we should not value people only by their economic worth or the services they carry out; they are members of families, friends, neighbours or colleagues. They are close to us. The lack of clarity and the limited offer from the Government are causing anxiety and anguish.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point and I hope the Government are listening, because this issue is absolutely fundamental. More than one in seven of my constituents is an EU national and most of them are living in a relationship, or simply sharing property, with UK citizens. Even though I was not seeking to canvass them, this was the biggest issue on the doorstep at the election. It is a constitutional outrage that we are putting millions of people—people who are productive but who also want to make their home here—in this position.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes a really excellent point, and I hope that the Minister is paying attention to it. I think we have all had hundreds of letters and emails from constituents who are EU nationals asking that the Government guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Anecdotally, I have been told of job adverts that contain the words, “Europeans need not apply”. There seems to be increasing evidence of discrimination and hostile working environments for EU citizens living in the UK. Will the hon. Lady condemn in the strongest terms the Government’s lack of action to tackle this, to make sure that the UK remains a place that people want to come to, and to send the message that all citizens are equal?

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

I call Roberta Blackman-Woods—30 seconds, please.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I think that what the hon. Lady describes is a challenge to the Minister.

As I was saying, many of our constituents are very worried that they will have to uproot their families by the end of March 2019. That is only 18 months away and it is completely wrong that people’s lives are still being negotiated over, which is causing this amount of concern. I hope we get some reassurances from the Minister that the Government are making progress and that we will get details of a reciprocal agreement very quickly, so that we can put at rest the minds of our constituents and those of UK citizens in the EU.