European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-01
Topic: Mixed Topics
Helena Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support this amendment. I also have my name on Amendment 16A with the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and on Amendment 38. I want to reiterate the point about the position at the time of the referendum. During the campaign, reassurance was given to EU nationals living here, and to our citizens living abroad in the European Union, that their rights would be protected. They were told this would happen under the international law of acquired rights As chair of the European Union Justice Sub-Committee, along with my colleagues on the committee, I heard evidence on the international law of acquired rights. It became very clear to us—and this is the basis of the report which is available to all noble Lords—that international law does not provide the kind of protections that were being given as a reassurance to those many people. Our committee embarked on an evidence-taking session which showed us that, with regard to the position of European Union nationals living here as well as our citizens living around Europe, they would be in extremis if we did not take steps very quickly to secure their rights As we have heard, more than 3 million European Union nationals live in this country. But they are not the only ones experiencing anguish; it is also their family members, their employers and their neighbours. This will affect a whole cadre of people beyond the people themselves. I suspect that our committee is at the receiving end of the greatest number of communications from those people about their distress, their anxiety, the fears of their children and their fears about their future. So we should not think that this is about only 3.5 million people and that we are preoccupied—as the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, seems to think we are—with the rights only of people living here. We have received a huge mailbag from people around Europe who are fearful of what their pension positions are. They are fearful because they retired to places such as Spain and now wonder what their prospects are: they worry about their healthcare situation and so on When we say our position should be that we leave it to the great negotiation and that it should be number one on the list, I want to remind, for example, the most reverend Primate that our Prime Minister did not go to Europe and say that we would give a unilateral declaration. She said that she wanted a negotiation before the triggering of Article 50. It was not on the table because, as we know, negotiation begins only after that. What she should have done—and what we urge her to do—is say that we will take the principled position of honouring our responsibilities to people who live and work with us, because of the impact on their lives, the lives of their families and the lives of all the people around them I would like to explain something. We discovered while taking evidence something that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Oates—that the law around permanent residence is incredibly complex and byzantine. In fact, Lord Justice Jackson described it as being such that its complexity would even have made Byzantine emperors envious. We have taken evidence about the impact of this on people making applications. The new piece of evidence that I offer to the noble Lord, Lord Howard, is this: we now know that in the period since the referendum, 30% of the applications made for permanent residence have been rejected. The refusals have been on the grounds of incomplete documentation or—and this is one of the most painful things to hear—that women who took time off from employment to have children did not pursue the private sickness insurance that the Government say was required. They are supposed to provide documentation to show that they had sickness insurance. If they are not able to provide it, they are told that they are not entitled to permanent residence. Many have received a refusal on that ground. These are the mothers of children, married to men here in Britain, living their lives here and having sent their children to school here. Many of them have been here for more than 20 years. We should understand the scandal that that creates I want to say to people who have been involved in any kind of business negotiation or legal negotiation that when you take a principled position at the beginning of a negotiation, it wins you so much good will. In communications we have received only today and yesterday, and from all those people in the European Union who are in contact with me as the chair of the sub-committee, people are saying to us, "Please pass the unilateral declaration amendment in the House of Lords", because it is giving reassurance not just to those nationals there but to all of us in Europe who are fearful about the future and who feel that it will give strength to our arguments in relation to Governments such as the Spanish Government, the Portuguese Government and so on I urge your Lordships to accept that this is a matter of principle. This is about the honour of this House. This is about us speaking to what people need to put their fears and their anguish at bay. We have a real responsibility to those people, and in taking the responsibility for the ones whom we can make decisions about, we therefore take responsibility for our citizens living in other parts of the European Union.