North and Leith MP Deirdre Brock has welcomed the Tory government’s sudden U-turn on imposing a £65 fee on EU citizens for settled status applications.
Commenting on the news yesterday that the UK Government has scrapped plans to charge EU citizens £65 to apply for settled status, Deidre Brock MP said: “I’m glad the UK Government has been forced to think again on this fee as they struggle to get their flawed Brexit plans through parliament.
“This should never have been on the table – people from other parts of Europe should not be asked to pay a fee to stay in their own homes.
“The UK Government’s Settled Status Scheme, requiring three and a half million people in the UK to register before a deadline or risk deportation, is deeply discriminatory and needs scrapped altogether. I tabled a motion on this earlier this year and my SNP colleagues and I will keep pressing the case for a rethink.
“Just today there was a report from migration experts warning that EU citizens could become the next ‘Windrush’ generation if there are problems with the Settled Status Scheme.
“Time for the UK Government to take heed, and to devolve the powers the Scottish Government needs to build an immigration system that welcomes people to live and work in Scotland instead of chasing them away.”
Deidre’s Motion: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/52432/eu-citizens-rights-and-the-settled-status-scheme
‘That this House condemns the Settled Status scheme for non-UK EU citizens as discriminatory and unnecessary; believes that people who have chosen to make their lives here under the auspices of the EU’s Freedom of Movement should be welcome to stay without any documentation or payment of a fee and should be entitled to retain the rights they currently have after the UK leaves the EU; and calls on the Government to amend the scheme accordingly without delay.’
The British Future report, ‘Getting it right from the start: Securing the future for EU citizens in the UK’:
http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/EU-Citizens-report-1-pdf.pdf
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