Rights of EU Nationals

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

The Minister is now well established in his new role, but let me take this opportunity to welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker). I look forward to working with him and the rest of the team in the years ahead.

I am grateful to the SNP for bringing this issue back to the House. For the avoidance of any doubt—if the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) were still in the Chamber, I would say that this applies particularly to him—I should make it clear that Opposition Members accept the result of the referendum. We simply want to ensure that our departure from the EU takes place on the best possible terms for the UK. As one of my colleagues said during last week’s Opposition day debate, the British people voted to come out; they did not vote to lose out. Providing guarantees for EU nationals now is part of securing the best deal for the UK. That is why we made it the topic of an Opposition day debate just two weeks after the referendum, and why we support the motion moved so ably today by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry).

Back in July, as now, it was clear that the Government did not have a plan. They had no plan for what Leave would look like, and no plan for the 3 million EU nationals who are living, working and studying in our country. During that debate, however, one of the leading leave campaigners rightly pushed for certainty on the issue. He said:

“I would like to put on record what I think has been said already—that countless times the Vote Leave campaign gave exactly this reassurance to everybody from EU countries living and working here, and it is very, very disappointing that that should be called into question. I think it is absolutely right to issue the strongest possible reassurance to EU nationals in this country, not just for moral or humanitarian reasons, but for very, very sound economic reasons as well. They are welcome, they are necessary, they are a vital part of our society, and I will passionately support this motion tonight.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2016; Vol. 612, c. 939.]

Let us give credit where it is due. After making that contribution, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) not only talked the talk but walked the walk, as did the overwhelming number of Members who voted for the motion to guarantee EU nationals the right to remain here. I hope that now that he is Foreign Secretary he is making the case even more strongly, because I guess in his new role at the Foreign Office he is learning the art of diplomacy. [Interruption.] Yes, he may have some way to go; I appreciate the Prime Minister is not yet entirely convinced. What he will know by now is that the way in which the Government have turned EU nationals living here into bargaining chips for the Brexit negotiations, or, as the Secretary of State for International Trade put it,

“one of our main cards”,

is not only deeply unfair to those concerned, but severely undermining our reputation with the very people with whom we want to be entering into negotiations next spring, not to mention the damage it does to our economy. Put simply, it is not in our national interest.

It is absolutely wrong for the Government to suggest that we cannot guarantee the status of EU nationals here—many of whom have been here for decades—without a reciprocal arrangement for UK nationals abroad. The Government are effectively asking people—doctors in our NHS, business owners and entrepreneurs, teachers in our schools—to put their lives on hold and wait until March 2019 to find out what their future holds. But many will want certainty for themselves and their families.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

The following question then arises: if he were in the Government, what guarantees would the hon. Gentleman give to British citizens living in the EU regarding their rights? What possible guarantees or safeguards could he give them?

[Paul Blomfield]

By giving those guarantees to EU nationals living in this country, we set the marker, and we give the best guarantees to our citizens living in the rest of the EU by making that stand now.

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[Dr Whitford]

Absolutely. So much of this is about not technicalities but the message we give outside this place. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said in winding up her speech, it is also about Britain’s reputation. Britain previously had a reputation for fairness. Look at the second or third generation of immigrants, who have made their home for generations in this country. Now we say, “You might not be able to stay,” or, “You might not be able to come.” The best way to secure the place of British nationals in Europe is for us to be gracious.

The hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) asked what we have done to try to make the position secure. I am on the all-party parliamentary group on Germany; we raised this issue both when we met the ambassador here and when we visited Berlin, and they were incredulous that we would even think that they would ask British nationals to go away. They said, “Should we make a move?” It is our move to make because the UK has created this situation.

We cannot survive without these people in the NHS and, in particular, the 80,000 who work in social care. If they apply because they are anxious for British citizenship, it will cost them almost £1,500 per head, per member of their family, to do so. That is quite a lot when someone might not even be earning the minimum wage. If the final position is that they are eventually treated the same as non-EEA citizens, it will cost £4,000 per head, including the NHS surcharge, which, despite working in it, they might actually have to pay to access it. To say that these things are trivial and that these people should be reassured is, I think, naive.

There is already an impact on medical research and academia. When I was at the graduation of my local university just a week after Brexit, had lost a senior researcher from mainland Europe who was almost at the point of stepping on the boat. He said, “Why would I move my children to an English-speaking school? Why would I disrupt and move my family when I might get sent home in two years?” The idea that this is having no effect and that people should just cling on to soft reassurance is childish. We are the ones who need to make the first move and we should make that move. Future agreements can be negotiated, but everyone settled here on 23 June or earlier should have that right to remain and we are the ones who should make that move.

The APPG visited Berlin and it was very interesting. I picked up a couple of points. Peter Altmaier, second-in-command to Angela Merkel, was quite shocked that we use the term EU migrant. He said that they would never use that term; to them, migrant means someone from outside Europe. It would be like our being described as Scottish migrants, or Irish migrants, within the British Isles. It seems abhorrent.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

This is the nub of the issue with the Brexit vote. The Germans are quite happy to describe people from outside the EU as migrants, but not people from within the EU. It was that exclusive club that I think led many ethnic communities in Britain to the out vote.

[Dr Whitford]

Frankly, this is an immigration arrangement from Europe. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that having stirred up the anti-immigrant view that led to leave we are going to say that we will not take EU nationals but that we will take many more people from all over the world, he is deluding himself.

Another point came up when members of our group said that Europe had to change free movement, so that we could stay in the single market. Where were we sitting at that moment? We were sitting in what had previously been East Berlin. We need to understand that for all Germans and east Europeans free movement of people comes from the heart; it is not a technical problem. They do not realise that we do not understand that. Twenty-seven years ago, there was a wall through Berlin. The last person trying to get over it was shot just a few months before it came down. Angela Merkel could not travel west until she was 36 years old.

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[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I have listened to the debate with considerable interest. I have found it particularly interesting—and slightly nauseating actually —to hear from Members of the Scottish National party, who drape themselves in a cloak of moral certainty, as if to cast aspersions on Conservative Members’ motivations and desire to foster good community relations. The Conservative Government and my constituents, who voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union, are not racists. May I repeat that for the benefit of SNP Members? It is not a racist campaign. This notion that, somehow, the Brexit vote was fuelled by xenophobia, that the people in the SNP are on the side of the angels, and that everyone who opposes them—everyone who has ever argued against them—is in a benighted cave of their own is completely ridiculous. Frankly, it is embarrassing; it insults the intelligence of people in this House for SNP Members to suggest that everyone else is xenophobic and that they alone are the guardians of moral virtue. [Interruption.] They may not have said it, but everything they have ever said on this issue implies exactly that: they seize the moral high ground and they proceed to lecture us, and those of us on the Government Benches have had enough of it.

Now, let me address the issue at hand. Nobody has suggested in the debate that migration is a bad thing in Britain. Many of the people who have spoken—myself included—are themselves the children or grandchildren of immigrants; they fully understand, and are fully conscious of, the benefits of migration to this country. The issue is simply a narrow one about the negotiation and the nature of the deal with the EU going forward. It is entirely legitimate for a Government, ahead of negotiations, to say, as the Government have done, that our aim is to guarantee and secure the rights of EU nationals in this country. That is what the Government have done, and it is entirely reasonable for them to have done that; in fact, nobody in the House, I think, would suggest that that was a bad thing.

The Government have said that that is the aim. Now, if it were to happen, for whatever reason—I am not prejudging this in any way—that an EU Government questioned the rights of British citizens working in their country, circumstances would of course have changed, and we could well be in a different situation.

[Dr Philippa Whitford]

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether, if there were difficulties with a country, he is suggesting that the Government would take reprisals?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am not suggesting anything of the kind. What I am saying is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) suggested, it is naive simply to give cast-iron guarantees at this point. I suspect that these guarantees will be given further along the line and that it is very likely we will reach a situation where everyone is happy and everyone can stay. However, at this moment—in October 2016—it would be a little premature, perhaps, to give those undertakings.

[James Berry]

In Kingston, as in Spelthorne, foreign-born people are welcome. We very much value their contribution; we want them to stay. However, is my hon. Friend aware that not one EU Head of State has given the unilateral and unequivocal guarantee that SNP Members are asking for in the debate?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. I regret to say this, but if one has been following the foreign news reports of the statements made by Jean-Claude Juncker and other people, it is clear that there is an air of menace around. I am not saying that it is universally expressed, but there is a view that somehow the British people acted defiantly or insolently towards the EU and that we should be punished as a consequence of the vote on 23 June. I regret having to say this, but it is a fact that people on the continent in high positions in the EU have made such statements.

[Mr Baron]

Many of us, leavers and remainers, have great sympathy with the position expressed in the motion, but where we part company is with the final six words

“should the UK exit the EU.”

Brexit means Brexit, and that is pure mischief-making by the SNP. That is why a lot of us will not be supporting the motion.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I think there are a number of reasons—

[Mike Weir]

rose—

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I have given way enough, and I want to proceed with the rest of my remarks.

Clearly, we are all in a mood of beneficence, good will and co-operation towards migrants from the EU and from outside the EU. The modern economy that we foster in Britain is dependent on a large degree of migration—we accept that. What we do not accept is the free movement of people unilaterally across the EU. Many Conservative Members do not think that is the right way to proceed. At this stage, before we have even entered into a negotiation, it would be premature to give the cast-iron guarantees that we all want to reach at the end. We all want to get to the stage where we can give these guarantees, but for as long as the rights of British citizens in the EU have not been guaranteed, it would be premature for a British Government to do so. [Interruption.] I can hear the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) chuntering from a sedentary position. He has spent many years in this House. He can ask to intervene in the customary fashion, if he wishes to do so, and I am quite willing to give way.

[Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)]

Can the hon. Gentleman explain the contrast between the 42% rise in hate crime in England in the immediate aftermath of Brexit and a 15% fall in similar statistics in Scotland?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I would not presume to talk about the earthly paradise otherwise known as Scotland. I am not going to make any statements about what is going on in Scotland, because I do not have the expertise to do so. However, I do regret the assumption that somehow the Brexit vote was driven by xenophobia and racism, and that the right hon. Gentleman’s party is completely absolved from that.

[Alex Salmond]

rose—

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I will allow the right hon. Gentleman to intervene once more, and then I want to wrap up.

[Alex Salmond]

This is not the hon. Gentleman’s responsibility, but he will remember the “Breaking Point” poster during the campaign—not the campaign that he was part of, but it was there for people to see. Does he believe that a poster like that, with Mr Farage in front of it, would tend to be the sort of thing that might incite hate crime?

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[Kwasi Kwarteng]

For the record, I want to state that I denounced that particular intervention from Mr Farage.

Of course we accept the benefits of migration, and of course we want to preserve and guarantee the rights of EU migrants, but today, when the rights of British citizens in the EU have not been guaranteed, it would be premature to give the guarantees that SNP Members seek.