Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Prime Minister's oral answer of 27 June 2017 to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central, Official Report, column 309, whether EU citizens applying to have a (a) spouse or partner, (b) child over 18-years old, (c) child under 18-years old or (d) parent join them in the UK after the UK has left the EU will be required to meet a minimum income threshold.

The Government’s policy paper (Cm 9464), which was laid before Parliament on 26 June, proposes that family members who wish to join an eligible EU citizen after exit will be subject to the same rules as apply to non-EU nationals joining British citizens, or alternatively to the post-exit immigration arrangements for EU citizens who arrive after the specified date, if they are an EU citizen.

It is our intention that all EU citizens living lawfully in the UK before the specified date are covered by the proposals. It will not be necessary to be present in the UK on the specified date and – as is currently the case under the Free Movement Directive - there will be flexibility for temporary absences.

The Government undertakes to treat EU citizens who were resident in the UK before the specified date, according to the principles set out in the policy paper in the expectation that the EU will offer reciprocal treatment for UK nationals resident in its member states.

Further details of the Government’s proposals on citizens’ rights are in the policy paper on ‘Safeguarding the position of EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU’, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu.