Freedom of Movement Ends

 
 
 

Good afternoon,

This week the Immigration Bill passed its Third Reading in the House of Commons. We explore the impacts of this Bill on citizens’ rights and scrutiny. British in Europe and the3million have released a new analysis of European Commission guidance notes. It looks into what the advice means for UK citizens’ rights in EU countries. As usual we have recommended reading for your day and you can hear a narrated version of this bulletin by clicking the play button below.

Enjoy,
Jacob

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In Politics

Immigration Bill Passes The Commons

  • Freedom of Movement is to end on 31st December 2020

  • Immigration Bill passed 342 to 248

  • Bill gives wide ranging delegated powers to Ministers

This week the key Brexit Bill the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill 2019-21 passed its Third Reading in the House of Commons and now progresses to the House of Lords. This Bill ends Freedom of Movement for UK and EU citizens when the UK leaves the transition period on the 31st December 2020. It does not provide details for the new immigration system but does provide wide ranging delegated powers for Ministers to bring in the new system as they wish. It passed its Third Reading 342 Ayes to 248 Noes. No Conservative MP voted against the Bill whereas some did vote for amendments.

As the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants outlined in their briefing on the report stage of the Bill, there continue to be concerns about the impact of the Bill on EU citizens’ rights. If an EU citizen does not register for settled status in time then they will be considered undocumented. They will then be subject to whatever the new immigration system is. A system that is yet to be designed, scrutinised and implemented.

This Bill enables Ministers to design and implement the new immigration system through wide ranging delegated powers. The scope and use of delegated powers are problematic for scrutiny and accountability. Delegated legislation provides fewer opportunities for MPs and civil society to scrutinise them compared to primary legislation. Due to this limited scrutiny, problems with the new immigration system may not come to light until after it is in place and affecting people's lives. 

There were several amendments voted on this week but all were defeated by the Government. An amendment by Yvette Cooper aimed to bring back the provisions to protect unaccompanied refugee children and reunite them with family in the UK. This has been known as the Dubs amendment. It has previously been in a Withdrawal Agreement Bill but was removed by Boris Johnson in his later version of the Bill. There were also amendments limiting the delegated powers of Ministers however these were not selected for debate, not voted on and therefore no limits to delegated powers were made.

The new immigration system is one of many new systems needed to be in place by December, when the UK leaves the transition period. It requires careful design to protect rights, and engage civil society, business, and allow for proper scrutiny by MPs. There remains only a few months for all this to be achieved, alongside a list of other crucial bodies and frameworks such as new environmental regulatory bodies and the new customs system. Time is running out for these to be set up and scrutinised as they need to be operating by the end of December this year.

We have a summary of the Report stage and Third Reading of the Immigration Bill available to read here.
 

In Policy

Withdrawal Agreement Application

  • New report analyses European Commission guidance given to member states about implementing the Withdrawal Agreement in regards to UK citizens’ rights in the EU

  • Guidance lacks clarity on UK citizens’ in the UK combining statuses such as third party country status

  • Clarifications needed on issues including social security, documentation, and workers’ rights

The3million and British in Europe have published “Comments on the EC Guidance Note relating to the Withdrawal Agreement” looking into how the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) is being applied to UK citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK. Alongside this analysis paper British in Europe are publishing guides too. The first covers Residence Rights and Procedures.

An EC Guidance note is a paper provided by the European Commission to EU member states which comment on EU regulations with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness and consistency of the enforcement of rules across the EU.

In May this year the European Commission published a guidance note for member states to use alongside the Withdrawal Agreement to make sure that citizens’ rights in the agreement are implemented correctly.

The analysis by British in Europe and the3million outlines some key areas that have either not been dealt with or where questions remain.  

In the guidance note there remains a lack of clarity about the ability of UK citizens living in the EU to combine their WA rights with other third country national status or with that of EU citizen family member status. As the WA does not provide for UK citizens mobility rights when in the EU there is potential for some to claim mobility rights via other nationality status. The directive does not specify what the relationship between these two statuses is and UK citizens’ in the EU need clarification. 

Questions remain over the documentation of permanent residence for UK citizens’ in the EU. The guidance does not require EU countries to make a clear distinction on the face of ID cards, of a UK citizen’s right to residence. This is important as documentation provides greater security for citizens’ to claim their rights. Similar concerns have been voiced by civil society groups in the UK and calls have been made to provide physical documentation for EU citizens’ with settled status.

The report goes into detail about further clarifications that are needed from the European Commission on a range of issues. Issues such as workers’ rights where the report states that the guidance current wording could lead to errors in implementation of rights or with frontier workers where countries could “be more generous in applying the conditions than others”. Without these changes the application of the agreement could differ from country to country impacting citizens’ rights. These are covered in depth by British in Europe and the3million

It is important that both the EU and the UK delivers on the commitments made to protect citizens rights in the Withdrawal Agreement. As covered in the Guardian this week, we have coordinated a letter to the Home Secretary, which calls for adjustments to be made to the EU Settlement Scheme to protect EU citizens from Covid-19.

Recommended Reading