Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

We have made clear—not only during departmental questions, but in the Prime Minister’s speech—our absolute commitment to the common travel area with Ireland. It is vital that we continue to engage with Ireland on cross-border issues, including students and universities, and I am delighted that the Prime Minister will be meeting the Taoiseach next week.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

10. If the Government will make it their policy to enable the Scottish Government to provide residency rights for EU nationals living in Scotland after the UK has left the EU.

[The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr David Davis)]

We will make the status of EU nationals in the UK, and of UK nationals in the EU, a priority for the negotiations. I think that we can all agree that this is the right and fair thing to do. The Prime Minister has already set out that we tried to achieve an early agreement on this issue with our EU partners. We will continue to do so. We also want to ensure that our immigration framework operates in the best interests of all parts of the United Kingdom, and we are working closely with the devolved Administrations to achieve that. For example, the Joint Ministerial Committee, which I chair, carefully considered the Scottish Government’s paper “Scotland’s Place in Europe” last week. We have made it clear that we intend to protect the existing rights enjoyed by UK and Irish nationals when in the other state, and to maintain existing border arrangements provided by the common travel area. None the less, immigration is a reserved matter.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson]

If the Government are not going to guarantee residency rights for EU nationals, may I ask what assessment have they made of the impact on the economy and public services of an exodus of EU nationals and the return of thousands of retired British immigrants?

[Mr Davis]

We do not intend to pursue a policy that will lead to that. There is a real issue at the heart of this, but the process is not helped by the slightly holier than thou stance of the Scottish National party. Perhaps the House should be reminded of the words of Nicola Sturgeon during the independence referendum in 2014. She said:

“We have set down a robust and common sense position. There are 160,000 EU nationals from other states living in Scotland, including some in the Commonwealth Games city of Glasgow. If Scotland was outside Europe”—

after independence—

“they would lose the right to stay here.”

I will deal with the issue properly.