Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether a decision has been taken on the expansion of the Youth Mobility Scheme to European nationals.

The UK currently operates nine Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS) arrangements with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea, San Marino, Japan, Monaco, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

As each YMS is subject to a bilateral, reciprocal agreement which also provides benefit to UK Nationals, the Home Office will not add nations to the scheme unilaterally in the absence of such an agreement.

Looking to the future, we have indicated our desire to negotiate a youth mobility arrangement with the EU, or with individual countries within it if a collective agreement is not possible.