EU Nationals in the UK

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

Of course. It is impossible to deny the simple power of what my right hon. Friend has just said. The generous, open-minded gesture of saying now that people are welcome here would not just improve our position in negotiations and strengthen the position of British nationals living abroad; it would say something very important about our country and how it has not changed after the referendum. That is why the Government should do it.

I want to end on a personal note. My wife, Marie-France, is a Dutch national, and she has been here for 26 years since we met at university. In that time, she has been a volunteer working with young people who have learning disabilities. She has been involved in our children’s schools. She has run a business and employed people. Following the death of her sister Claire a decade ago, she has raised thousands and thousands of pounds through Race for Life for Cancer Research UK. I will be honest; she cried and cried after the Brexit result was announced. Although she has paid tax here for more than 20 years, she was not able to cast a vote in that momentous decision. She has never been able to vote for me in a general election, although she often threatens that she would not vote for me if she could. As a result of Brexit, she and other EU nationals could even lose their right to vote in local elections—that is no longer guaranteed unless there is a change in the law. The old saying “No taxation without representation” does not currently apply to the 3 million EU nationals living among us. We could say that this country is already treating them as second-class citizens; they will be even worse off if we do not rectify the situation we are discussing today.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I can trace the alienation the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) back to the point when this House refused to give EU nationals the vote in this referendum. We gave them the vote for the independence referendum in Scotland. Does the right hon. Gentleman regret that decision by the Government?

[Andy Burnham]

It was entirely wrong. As I said, what happened to no taxation without representation? I cannot defend a situation in which British nationals had the vote in the referendum even if they were living abroad but people living and paying taxes here did not. There was a basic unfairness in that, which needs to be corrected.

We have got this the wrong way around, and I sincerely hope that the Government will act soon to confirm the legal right of EU nationals to be here. Rather than dragging it out grudgingly, should we not take this opportunity to do the opposite and show them how much we value them by giving them that right to have their say at elections? We could go further, as the Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested and the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) said a moment ago, and offer British citizenship for free to any EU national working in our national health service or other public services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I certainly hope that that transpires and becomes the case. The message should go out loud and clear from here that it is Parliament’s will that all EU nationals in this country will continue to enjoy the rights that they have just now and on the same terms and conditions.

I am also asking the House to think again about how we approach the debates on immigration. As I was about to say, it is absolutely no coincidence that what was an already desperate and ugly campaign went completely off the rails after 26 May when the latest net migration figures were published. Politicians have turned the net migration target into some sort of Holy Grail, regardless of the fact that it is utterly unobtainable, and we have reaped the disastrous consequences in the weeks since those results.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am very grateful to the other Stuart McDonald for giving way. I am not suggesting for a minute that this is Scottish National party policy, but something that has been on my mind for a number of years is that, given that we know the economic benefits of immigration, why do we not shift responsibility for it away from the Home Office to the Treasury? Would that not change the terms of the debate?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

My honourable namesake makes a very good point. My point is that it is time to do things very, very differently. A few months ago, I went to Edinburgh university to meet Professor Christina Boswell who had arranged a discussion about the dangerous disconnect between political rhetoric and reality when it comes to immigration. She highlighted the launch by the German Government, back in 2000, of a cross-party commission on immigration. The German Immigration Commission brought together the main political parties, as well as representatives of business, trade unions, religious and migrant groups and immigration experts. It allowed for evidence-based discussion on all aspects of immigration, and sought to build consensus around policy reform. It examined Germany’s demographic and economic needs as well as challenges related to the social impacts of immigration and policies for integration. Perhaps more significantly, it changed the whole tenor of debate in Germany, normalising the idea that Germany was, and would need to remain, a country of immigration, and encouraged a more grounded and factually informed discussion of what that would entail.

We can perhaps learn too from the Government of Canada, who just yesterday launched a national conversation on immigration. Their starting point is:

“Although times and conditions may have changed, 21st-century newcomers to Canada have retained…innovative spirit, enriching the communities where they settle and helping to ensure the Canada of tomorrow remains as dynamic as the country of yesterday.

Canada’s strength lies in its diversity. Indeed, the story of Canadian immigration is inseparable from the story of Canada itself.”

The conversation document seeks to engage all Canada’s citizens in a grown-up discussion of all the key questions, from

“How many newcomers should we welcome to Canada in 2017 and beyond?”

to

“Is it important for Canada to continue to show leadership in global migration? If so, how can we best do that?”

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

I wish to compliment the shadow Home Secretary on the way he opened this debate. He set the matter out in exactly the right tone, with precision, and suggested how it could be resolved, and I am extremely grateful. I wish I could say that the Minister approached the issue with some degree of certainty, but he was able to offer only a convoluted and equivocal speech that will have generated not certainty but uncertainty in the minds of many EU nationals living in this country.

For me, this started not after the referendum but before it, when during Prime Minister’s questions I mentioned two of my constituents of German nationality who were so upset at the nature of the debate on immigration that they left Scotland and said that they did not want to live in the United Kingdom while the referendum was going on, such were their feelings about the way they were characterised. That issue went even deeper for them, because they had lived in Scotland at the time of the independence referendum when they were allowed a vote. For the EU referendum, however, they were denied the vote that this House should have given them and that would have helped to relieve some of their pre-vote anxieties.

Many Members have constituents who are caught in many different situations. Not only have those two constituents of mine already left—I am trying to persuade them to return to Scotland—but I heard yesterday from a local friend who is a mortgage broker and said that a couple who were due to buy their first home in Scotland withdrew at the last minute saying, “We’re EU citizens. We cannot take the risk of investing here when such uncertainty lies over us today.”

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Does that put to bed the lie that the Government have a long-term economic plan?

[Roger Mullin]

I always thought that it was rather fanciful thinking on the Government’s part that they knew what a long-term economic plan might look like. We need not a long-term economic plan, but short-term and immediate action for every EU national who lives in this country.

One lady wrote to me in concern because her husband is from Denmark and is anxious about what will happen to them. She asked, “Will our family be split up?” These are anxieties and the Minister might say, “Well, some of those anxieties are ill-founded.” But the anxieties are not ill-founded if the Government lack clarity. If the Government decline to give the clarity and certainty they need, people’s uncertainty and their worries are perfectly legitimate. Minister, it is time to act. It is not too late: do the right thing, and do it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

As always, it is a pleasure to follow my old friend the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin). [Hon. Members: “Young friend!”] He is young at heart.

The motion states that men, women and children should not be used as bargaining chips in negotiations on the UK’s exit from the EU. I want to associate myself with that statement. Many of us will have had conversations with worried citizens living in the UK who come from Europe. Last Friday in my constituency, I arranged to meet a French national, a teacher in a secondary school, who, like so many of those who have come to live in our country, is making a valuable contribution within our communities. She wants to stay here, but now feels deeply unsettled and frightened that she may not be in a position to remain in the longer term. The conversation I had, with my constituent explaining her fears and anxieties, will be replicated by many of the 173,000 EU citizens living in Scotland.

Where is our humanity to those living among us—our friends, neighbours and colleagues who are fearful as to whether they will have the right to remain here? That is why my colleague, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, is right to call on the UK Government to guarantee the rights of all those who are living here who are EU citizens. We have a moral and ethical right to enshrine the rights of those who are here legitimately. The Government could do this today. They should have the courage to extend the hand of friendship to those who are here and call this place home. Why would any Government want to cause unnecessary fear and alarm to those who are here legitimately? We should be saying, “You are welcome to stay on a permanent basis.” To do anything less is unacceptable.

The Home Secretary, a future potential Prime Minister of the UK, must make it clear that we recognise the right to remain for all EU citizens who are here. She could have participated in this debate today, put the record straight and allayed the fears of many EU citizens in our midst. Where is the Home Secretary?

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) tweeted that the Home Secretary is at a food-tasting event somewhere else in the Palace of Westminster.

[Ian Blackford]

The Home Secretary may be at a food-tasting event, but she has certainly left a bad taste in the mouth of many of us. Her comments on television last Sunday fell way short of the moral leadership she should be taking. The Home Secretary said:

“We’re still a member of the EU and the arrangements still continue, so there is no change to their position currently. But of course as part of the negotiation we will need to look at the question of people who are here in the UK from the EU”.

If that is not a bargaining chip, I do not know what is. That is precisely what the Home Secretary put across last Sunday. That was an alarming statement: EU citizens by definition being used as a bargaining chip in negotiation. Home Secretary, we are talking about people living among us who do not want to be used as pawns in a negotiation. What a shameful position to take! That is not the position of a leader; it is an abrogation of responsibility from someone who aspires to leadership. In contrast to Nicola Sturgeon, who is providing leadership to EU citizens, the Home Secretary sees them as bargaining chips: leadership from our First Minister in Scotland, failure from Westminster.

Migrants make a valuable contribution to our country and are an important part of Scotland’s future, both in terms of contributing to sustainable economic growth and mitigating the effects of demographic change. I call on the Government to do the right thing today and give certainty to all our EU citizens. Fundamentally, from those of us from Scotland, there is a very strong message: we voted to remain and the best way to protect the rights of our EU citizens is for Scotland to remain in the European Union.