Immigration: EU Nationals
(asked on 17th March 2021) - View Source
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department plans to take to tackle the matter of self-sufficient individuals of EU nationality who were not informed of requirements to hold comprehensive sickness insurance but who now require such insurance to apply for British citizenship.
Guidance on which groups of EEA nationals required comprehensive sickness insurance, as well as the types of documents accepted to meet this condition, has always been publicly available. This can currently be found from page 38 of the guidance on ‘qualified persons’ available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/european-economic-area-nationals-qualified-persons.
The requirements to naturalise as a British citizen remain unchanged by our exit from the European Union or the implementation of the EU Settlement Scheme. This includes requirements to normally have been free of immigration time restrictions for 12 months before applying, and to have been lawfully in the UK throughout the residential qualifying period.
There may be cases where nationality caseworkers need to satisfy themselves the person was here lawfully. This is not a new requirement and was an assessment we have always been making. It is also a statutory requirement and cannot be ignored. The same applies to all applicants, EEA or not. We have recently amended the application forms to ensure we can gather as much of this information upfront at the application stage where possible.
Guidance on GOV.UK sets out when we might exercise discretion where a person did not meet the lawful residence requirements. This includes where it is because the applicant did not meet an additional/implicit condition of stay under EEA Free Movement Regulations, rather than illegal entry or overstaying, such as an EEA or Swiss national living or studying in the UK, rather than working, not having CSI.
As has previously been confirmed I am not aware of any application for UK Citizenship being declined purely on the basis of the CSI requirement under EEA Free Movement Regulations and it should not deter anyone from making their application. The guidance can be found at the following link: