European Union Citizenship

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman gives way, I appreciate that he is illustrating his points, but I hope he will soon return to the point of EU citizens, because this motion is fairly narrow. It is important to bear that in mind. He may now give way.

[Stephen Doughty]

I note your comments, Madam Deputy Speaker. Key in the motion is the issue of the single market, and the hon. Gentleman knows that I fully support our remaining in it. He will recall that the Brexit Secretary said that we would get the “exact same benefits”, but that is patently not going to be the case. I totally agree with what the hon. Gentleman was saying, as I too have been to see those Treasury papers, and they are clear that we will be worse off in every scenario. That is not the “same benefits”, be they for citizens, for our businesses or for our country.

[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and it is why today’s debate on associate citizenship is so important and why I am so glad it has been brought forward.

I will talk a little about Scotland’s own experiences—you will be well aware of this, Madam Deputy Speaker. This idea of European citizenship is not a new concept that arose in the 1970s; it is a historical one. It is said that in 1295 Scots looked at the idea of dual citizenship with the French as part of the auld alliance. If we go down the Corridors through to the House of Lords, we see the English Tudor monarchs on the wall, along with the Scots Tudor monarchs, some of whom were French—the Dauphin of France at that time is up on the wall there. If we look at the rights of Scots traders as citizens in places such as Veere in the Netherlands, we see that a former Member of this House, Winnie Ewing, was the honorary conservator of the privileges of the Scottish staple of Veere back in the day. Going back even further, to the letter of Lubeck, we see that the first thing that William Wallace did after the battle of Stirling bridge and Scottish independence was to get back in touch with our European partners, because this idea of citizenship—this idea of working together and that Scotland is a European nation—does not go back just to the 1970s; it goes back many hundreds of years. I will move on from that point, but I encourage Members to read and listen to the works of my constituent Billy Kay, who has been excellent on the impact of the Scottish diaspora elsewhere in Europe.

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[Ben Lake]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes an important point about unnecessarily limiting the horizons of UK citizens. That is the point I am trying to make, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.

As I mentioned, this is perhaps not a legal issue but more a question of political will. The will of the public—in particular, their support for such a measure—is quite clear. As my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon mentioned in his opening remarks, according to research led by the London School of Economics and Opinium in July 2017, of those Britons asked, six out of 10 wanted to keep their EU citizenship after Brexit, and they particularly wanted to keep the rights to live, work, study and travel within the EU. Support for the retention of those rights is particularly strong among 18 to 24-year-olds, of whom 85% want to retain their EU citizenship in addition to their British citizenship.

In October 2017, a further report was published by the LSE on youth perspectives and priorities for the Brexit negotiations. Focus groups revealed widespread fear and frustration. Prime among young people’s concerns were questions regarding the loss of their EU benefits, including their ability to gain access to educational programmes, opportunities to work and travel in Europe, and rights that they have once they are there.

Ceredigion, the constituency that I have the honour of serving, was one of the handful of Welsh areas that voted to remain. Indeed, prior to the referendum, Ceredigion was widely reported to be one of the most Europhile counties in the whole United Kingdom. To put it bluntly, my constituency did not support leaving the EU and most certainly did not give any Government a mandate to deny its citizens the rights and freedoms that membership of the EU ensures, or, as the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) said, a mandate to limit their horizons and opportunities in comparison with citizens of other European states.

As has been mentioned, the question of the future status of the rights bestowed on UK citizens by EU membership will not disappear; rather, it will grow in both prominence and importance as negotiations progress. A lot has been made of the clarity, or lack thereof, of EU law on the status of the rights of UK citizens after we have left, but I wish to draw attention to international law. European law and its founding treaties may offer a clear interpretation one way, but the reverse is equally clear in international law. If anything, the 1969 Vienna convention on the law of treaties means that it is incumbent on both the UK and the EU to address this matter of future status urgently, for even if article 70(1)(b) of the convention is interpreted in such a way that the withdrawal of a member state from the EU extinguishes the rights of individuals created by the founding treaties, international law would still require that a treaty is agreed on the future status of such rights.

Associate European citizenship is a model that the UK Government could adopt and pursue. As well as affording UK citizens the ability to continue to enjoy the rights and freedoms they currently do, it would safeguard the dormant rights of younger generations, and, perhaps most importantly of all, grant generations yet to be born the same opportunities from which those of us present here today have been able to benefit.

[Stephen Doughty]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making such a passionate and eloquent case, which I wholeheartedly support. Like him, I represent a constituency—Cardiff South and Penarth—in which people voted to remain. Does he share the real horror that I have of speaking to young people? We are still relatively young ourselves, but we had those opportunities to go abroad. I lived in Denmark and Belgium and enjoyed all my opportunities, but we now have to go around our constituencies and tell young people that they will have fewer opportunities, fewer rights and fewer prospects than we did even just a few years ago.

[Ben Lake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who has got to the nub of the issue. By not pursuing this option or addressing the matter more thoroughly, we are at risk of denying our younger generations the opportunities that we were able to enjoy.

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[Anna McMorrin]

That is an excellent point with which I completely agree. Indeed, I am about to speak about just that issue.

Brexit is an injustice that will take away rights without giving people the option to secure those rights in the long term for themselves and their children. The idea of European citizenship is cherished by those who are old enough to remember a time when Europe was going through a healing process. We seem to have forgotten that it was not always the peaceful, prosperous place that it is today: a union of people, not merely nations. It is a pity that there are elected politicians in this House who are unwilling to understand the strong feelings of many British people about their European identity.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is making a strong speech. Does she agree that many people, particularly in places like Cardiff where we have a strong and thriving university sector, see themselves much more as part of pan-European collaboration in science and driving forward progress in discovery, and key to that is their European Union citizenship? By taking that away we potentially do great damage to those relationships on a European level that are taking forward all sorts of exciting scientific discoveries.

[Anna McMorrin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am proud to represent Cardiff North, and the whole of Cardiff is a diverse community. We have plenty of students from across the European nations, and we want to retain that feeling of European identity and citizenship.

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[Stephen Doughty]

I hope I can tempt the Minister back to the rights that UK citizens currently have as EU citizens. He said a few moments ago that it had not been suggested in the negotiations, but Guy Verhofstadt has been clear that he believes that UK citizens would be able to retain their EU citizenship rights on an individual basis. What does the Minister have to say about that clear proposal?

[Mr Walker]

As the hon. Member for Arfon mentioned earlier, I have personally discussed this issue with Guy Verhofstadt. I put it to him that we are negotiating with the Commission, so he needs to make that point to the Commission. If he wishes that to be part of the negotiations, it needs to be discussed in that context. After his meeting in Downing Street this week, Guy Verhofstadt said:

“I think it is possible in the coming days and coming weeks we make progress on this”

issue for citizens

“and we can conclude on this…It should be fine that the citizens rights’ chapter is done, it is finished, it is concluded and everybody knows UK nationals and EU citizens know what their status is in the future.”

I welcome that statement.

Some colleagues have referred to rights that are not covered by the agreement we have reached so far—for example, the right of onward movement for UK nationals. The EU’s approach so far has been to say that it is not an issue that can be resolved in this phase of the negotiations, but we have had meetings on the topic with Members of the European Parliament, and I know that they are as keen as we are to secure that right. It is not something on which we have in any way given up.

Other colleagues, including the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, referred to the right to stand and vote in local and national elections. I stress that we wanted that right to continue—we would have liked it to be part of the citizens’ rights agreement—but the European Commission again ruled that it was outside the scope of the first stage of the negotiations. We have made a commitment to protect that right for EU citizens currently in the UK, and we want to that to be reciprocated. A number of member states already have provisions allowing nationals of a third country to vote in local elections, and we will continue to explore that with other member states bilaterally.

The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) mentioned plans to legislate to enable UK citizens living overseas for more than 15 years to retain their right to vote. I am sure that, like me, she welcomed the Government’s support for legislation of this nature just the Friday before last.

As the House will be aware, we are seeking to agree an implementation period of about two years beyond the date of our exit. The purpose of such a period is to give people, businesses and public services in the UK and across the EU the time they need to put in place new arrangements that will be required to adjust to our future partnership. I want to be clear that, during this implementation period, we intend that people will be able to come to the UK to live, study and work, as they do now. We are discussing the precise terms of the implementation period with the EU and we aim to reach agreement by the March European Council.