Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on what grounds the requirement for an EU Citizen to hold comprehensive sickness insurance while exercising their treaty rights as a self-sufficient person or student may be waived in respect of applications for permanent residence documents.

The Free Movement Directive, as implemented in the UK by the Immigra-tion (EEA) Regulations 2016, requires students and self-sufficient persons to hold comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI).

The Government may waive this requirement when considering applica-tions for permanent residence documents from EEA national students who have been issued with a registration certificate confirming their residence as a student in the UK before 20 June 2011. In such cases, it is accepted that time spent in the UK without holding CSI is deemed lawful residence for the purposes of assessing whether the five-year qualifying period for permanent residence has been met.

Guidance on comprehensive sickness insurance requirements and transitional provisions for students can be found in the guidance on ‘qualified persons’ (from page 30) on Gov.uk via the link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/european-economic-area-nationals-qualified-persons.

The information available on grants and refusals of documents certifying permanent residence is published at a total level in the quarterly Immigration Statistics, EEA table ee_02_q, latest edition at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2018.

Information relating to the specific reason for refusal of those applications for permanent residence is not published.

For the avoidance of doubt, comprehensive sickness insurance is not a requirement for applications to the EU Settlement Scheme, which has been established to grant UK immigration status to EU citizens as we leave the EU.