Oral Answers to Questions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

The Government have an absolute zero-tolerance policy for any sort of domestic abuse or violence. I will certainly take up the hon. Lady’s recommendation of speaking to my colleagues in the Department of Health to see what more we can do to prevent this awful crime from happening to our much-appreciated nurses.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

10. What estimate she has made of the number of non-UK EU nationals currently residing in the UK who will be entitled to apply for indefinite leave to remain after the UK leaves the EU.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)]

The Government have been clear that they want to protect the status of EU nationals already living here. The only circumstances in which that would not be possible are if British citizens’ rights in European member states were not protected in return.

[Steve McCabe]

My question was what estimate the Secretary of State had made of the numbers, because on 10 October her colleague the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said that by the time we leave, five out of six migrants will have, or be entitled to, indefinite leave to remain. That is 2.5 million people. Is that the policy of the Government?

[Amber Rudd]

I saw those reports. They were based on existing public research, which estimates that around 80% of EU migrants already here will have been resident in the UK for up to five years by the start of 2019. However, it is too simplistic and too early to reach definitive conclusions about what the outcome will be when we do leave.