EU Nationals

Stephen Kerr Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

I want to take an intervention from the other side of the House now.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman really insinuating that there is a threat in his mind—I believe that it exists only in his mind—that we are somehow going to remove these valuable members of our society from our nation? That is a preposterous suggestion. It is simply fear-mongering.

[Stephen Gethins]

This is outrageous. If this was scaremongering, the Government would be quite happy to remove the uncertainty from EU citizens, but they have not done so. And what about the 100 EU nationals who received Home Office letters telling them that there had been an unfortunate error? Those letters should have told them, “We are sorry. You are welcome to stay here.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

I am proud to live in a country where fundamental decency and neighbourliness lead us to welcome newcomers and embrace them as our own. There is something inspiring about our warm embrace of citizens from all over the world. It is often said that tolerance is one of the British virtues, but I believe it goes beyond that: it goes beyond tolerance to a warm acceptance and a sense of celebration about our diversity.

We should be gratified that so many people from around the world chose to make the United Kingdom their home, and they make a full contribution to the society they live in. They are an economic positive; indeed, an economic necessity—students, entrepreneurs, skilled workers and valued employees. Before my election to this place, I had the privilege to work alongside and lead teams of wonderful colleagues from across the EU—talented, motivated and inspiring people—who had chosen to come to the United Kingdom and build their future lives here. Every one of those wonderful people, my former colleagues, should, in common with all other EU nationals living and working in our country, be assured of their position in our society, which is as much theirs as it is mine.

That is why the priority, first and foremost, of Her Majesty’s Government in our negotiations with the EU was, from the very outset, to secure the status of EU citizens living in the United Kingdom and that of British nationals living in the EU. This debate is somewhat redundant because we have received assurances, as we did again from the Minister today, that we are “within touching distance” of an agreement to safeguard these rights.

SNP Members have brought forward this issue for debate—they do so with alarming frequency—because every time they do they try to tell people, despite a thousand assurances to the contrary, that their right to stay in this country is somehow at risk. No EU national currently living in the UK lawfully should have any fear, whatever the scaremongers on the SNP Benches may say, about having to leave the United Kingdom when our country leaves the EU.

SNP Members spread fear and panic because they think there is some party political advantage in doing so, but fear and panic are entirely unjustified. Their implication that Conservative Members are somehow plotting to ship back our friends, our neighbours, our work colleagues, our partners and our families to the country they came from is absurd, but it is an absurd narrative that they delight in because absurdity is their speciality.

Whatever spin SNP Members try to put on this situation, the fact is that the people of Britain—the family of nations and regions that make up our United Kingdom—voted to leave the European Union. EU nationals are welcome in this country, and will continue to be welcome here. Frankly, I do not think that the British people who have EU nationals as friends, family, neighbours, colleagues and partners would stand for any other policy, and it is disreputable of SNP Members to suggest that they would. I am happy that this House should take a lead from our neighbours and our friends, as well as from our EU nationals, who are under no threat whatsoever from this Government.