Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 28 February (HL5522), whether they intend to remove from the UK those EU citizens who are residing in the UK otherwise than in accordance with the Free Movement Directive.

Under EU law, EU nationals who wish to stay in the UK for longer than three months can only do so if they are exercising a Treaty right. This means that they must be a jobseeker, worker, self-employed, self-sufficient or a student. The Free Movement Directive (2004/38/EC) requires students and self-sufficient persons to have comprehensive sickness insurance and sufficient resources to support themselves and their families to not become a burden on the UK’s social assistance system.

At present the UK remains in the EU, and as such, EU nationals continue to be subject to the rights and responsibilities set out in existing legislation which governs the exercise of free movement in the UK. EU nationals that do not meet the requirements of the Free Movement Directive are not lawfully resident in the UK and may be liable to removal.

However, because it is relatively straight forward to rectify and establish a right to reside in the UK, longstanding Home Office practice is not to seek the removal of EU nationals solely because they do not have comprehensive sickness insurance but have otherwise met the requirements under EU law.