Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, September 28, 2017

Official Report 501KB pdf

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Withdrawal from the European Union (Citizens’ Rights)

Agenda item 3 is an evidence-taking session on EU citizens’ rights. The panel members are all EU citizens who live and work in Scotland, and all are members of Fife Migrants Forum. In what I think is a first for the committee, this evidence session is being streamed live on Facebook, and I welcome anybody who is engaging with the committee via Facebook.

I welcome the panel of witnesses. Since we have a larger number of witnesses than usual, it might be best if the witnesses introduced themselves and told us a little bit about who they are and what they do.

Hello. I moved to Scotland in 2010 and my husband came here one year before me. I have two children, I work and I am a student. I live in Glenrothes.

Hello. I am from Romania. I got married in 2013. From 2014, there was an open market for Romanians and Bulgarians to come here and get a job. Having a new family, I said, “Let’s have a new start and hopefully a better one.” We have our family with us—we have two daughters—and we live in Fife. We love living here and hope that we will be here for a long time.

Good morning. I am a case worker with Fife Migrants Forum. I came to Scotland about 12 years ago, but Glenrothes and Fife are my places—this is my home. Every day, I deal with the problems that we have after Brexit and the ways that Brexit affects us. I have a two-year-old daughter, who has a British passport. I have a mortgage. What else do you want to know?

Hello. I am from Spain and I have been here for seven years. I have worked since I arrived and I am still working. I want to make sure that we can stay here for a long time.

I am also from Spain and have been here for seven years. I am married, I have two kids and my mum lives with me. I work and go to college, and I want to stay here as long as I can. I do not want to leave.

Thank you. I am sure that you have all been watching on television the on-going negotiations between the EU and UK Government. The status of EU citizens is a priority for the EU, and it has said that it cannot move on to the next stage of talks until there is clarity on that. However, there seems to be a difference of views between the EU and the UK about the level of reassurance that is required to make people feel that their rights are being properly protected. Are you concerned about the way that negotiations are going, or are you happy with the UK’s announcements to reassure EU citizens?

We still do not know anything, because it is not clear to us that we have a right to reside here permanently. We want to know that we will not lose our houses, our jobs or our human rights here. We do not want to be treated differently. We have made so many contributions to this country and we do not want to be discriminated against.

That is true. We still do not know what we have to do. We need clear information on what we have to do next. What is the next step? Every time we watch the TV, we ask, “What is happening?” We still do not know. Lots of my friends—especially people who have been here less than five years—have to leave Scotland because they do not see a future; they do not know what is next. Two months from now, my eight close friends will leave Scotland because they still do not know what is happening.

I am stuck, because I do not know what I have to do next. Should I plan my future here? Should I plan my studies here? I do not know what I have to do now. It is the same for my sons, who are 11 and 15 and are thinking about their future here. They do not know what will happen next. Will they be able to stay here or not?

Even applying for permanent residency cards would not save us, because those cards will no longer be valid after Brexit. That is the information on the Government website. How can we protect each other? How can we protect our families?

It is interesting that you say that. My understanding is that the legal right to remain permanently after five years is not contested and is not at risk. I guess that the question is whether you and other people are applying to have your status recognised. What is your experience of applying for your status to be recognised?

Have you ever seen the form? It is about 80 pages. May I ask you a question, Lewis? Do you remember how long you were away last time you went on holiday, or when you went on holiday 12 years ago? Can you tell me that?

That is a very good question. You are putting me right on the spot.

The form asks those questions. It asks how many times I have been away from my country—this country is my country; when I went; for how long I went; and when I came back. It asks about any benefits we claimed. If we claimed child tax credits, it asks how much and for how long. If someone claimed jobseekers allowance, it asks exactly the same questions: how much? For how long? Do you think that we are able to provide that information?

The issue, then, is having an accessible mechanism to make that application. Have you made that application, Katarzyna?

I was helping people, and I have been trained by the Fife Law Centre to do the application, but I see no point in doing it if it will no longer be valid. For me and my husband—my daughter is already a British citizen—it would cost £160. It would be a waste of money. I know a lot of people who were being helped to make the application before we received the information that it would no longer be valid after Brexit.

Where did you get that information from?

From the Government website.

It is true that we are still able to be permanent residents here; the thing is that permanent residency cards will not be valid after Brexit. All the foreigners with those cards paid more than £160 for them. A friend paid £360 for his whole family, but he now has to pay for the new settled status. What is the point in applying for permanent residency now—or what was the point of having applied a few months ago—if it will no longer be valid and we will have to apply again for settled status?

What communication have you had directly from the UK Government?

We do not have any communication. We have to look in newspapers and on the Government website. That is it. We do not have any letters from the Government that say, “Your rights are safe.” Even up here, when I applied for a passport for my daughter, I had to provide all our documents from the past 11 years. It does not matter—I am still not safe up here. I have worked up here since I came here. What if something happens to me or I lose my job? What will happen?

We have heard anecdotes of European citizens living here who are now struggling to get tenancies, because landlords are not convinced that they will be able to guarantee that they will stay here, and they are also struggling to get mortgages and new jobs. In your experience and in the experience of people you know, are those anecdotes accurate?

I have a few clients who have said that they are worried about getting a mortgage. I know that their applications have already been rejected by a few banks. I guess that that is because of their immigrant status.

Most employers will start to think twice about whether it is all right to take on someone with immigrant status as an employee or to take on someone else from outside Europe instead. It is not about whether they are British, but about employers saying, “Shall I have this one who is already here, or shall I look elsewhere?”

I believe that, at this point, if there are two candidates and one of them is from Europe and the other from outside Europe, 80 per cent of the time the employer will choose the one from outside Europe, because they are regulated and have what is needed to work here. We will have problems after Brexit because no employers will take us on. I do not believe that anything for that will be ready.

The problem will be not just after Brexit but during the negotiations. Just now, there is nothing clear about what will happen to us and what kind of paperwork we will need in order to stay here. We do not know what status we will need or whether we will have to prove something to employers. This is not just about protecting us but about protecting employers, because it must be clear to them that they can hire someone from the EU. They need to be comfortable with hiring someone from the EU and know that they will not leave their job after a month or two so that the employer has to find someone else.

That was my situation when I applied to a food company for a new job. I had been here for five years and the lady who interviewed me asked me about a permanent residence card, but I told her that I did not have one because I did not have to apply for one. She told me that she could not give me a job because she did not know how long I could stay here. She said that they would have to spend time training me and doing everything that was required for a new employee, but she could then be told that she was not allowed to employ anyone from the EU and would have to drop me. Employers are not comfortable, because they do not know what is going to happen next.

I do not have a residence card. My application form is at home. I have had to change it three times, because I have had to update it. I cannot fill out the form on my own and need help from a lawyer, because ordinary people do not understand everything in the form; we have to spend money on a lawyer in order to make the application. However, I now hear that the permanent residence card will not be valid after Brexit.

I will stay in my job because I love it. However, I need extra work, and I cannot get another job because of the problem of employers not knowing what is going to happen next.

A number of you mentioned that you have children. What effect is the uncertainty having on your children?

The uncertainty means that we do not know what is going to happen to them, but we want certainty for them. As I said earlier, I do not mind what happens to us; if we have to leave, we have to leave. If Britain does not want us, I do not want to stay in a place that does not want me.

All I want is to protect my kids, who are aged just six and two. If you were to ask the older one where he is from, he would not be able to tell you, but if you were to ask him something about Spain, he would tell you that it is a place to go for holidays. To him, he is not from Spain; he just knows that we go there on holiday.

10:30  

We do not know what will happen with them. My kids do not have British passports; they have Spanish ones. I do not know whether I can apply for British citizenship for them. I do not know what will happen with the school. I know nothing, because there is no information. There is no letter to us from the UK Government saying, “Do not worry. We will give you more information,” or giving us an update. Nothing is clear at all.

When we bought a new house and moved from Kirkcaldy to Glenrothes, my son had to change school. On his first day, his new friends asked him where he was from. He told them that he was from Kirkcaldy, because he does not understand that he is from Poland. He has spent seven years here. He was two years old when he came here, and he does not know a different life. We have spent holidays and Christmas in Poland, but his whole life has been here, so he feels that he is not from Poland but from Kirkcaldy.

Most of us think that the uncertain situation that the panel members are in is utterly intolerable. I will ask about the case that you have made about it. Have you pointed out your concerns to your members of Parliament, who sit in the House of Commons down in London and who can make a case directly to the UK Government ministers who are responsible for that uncertainty?

Yes—we have. Fife Migrants Forum has had a few events with MPs, at which we explained our worries. However, since then, they have not been able to give us any answers.

So nothing happens and there are no answers because there is no certainty from the UK Government. At any stage, have you been invited to talk directly to the UK Government—whether that might be to officials or civil servants or directly to ministers?

A minister’s secretary visited us two weeks ago and we talked directly to her.

Did you make those points directly to her?

Yes.

Did you feel that you got a sympathetic hearing?

That is a hard question, because it is part of my work to be here. As I told you, I do not feel like an immigrant here, because I feel that I belong to Scotland and to my small town of Glenrothes, where I have stayed for the past 12 years. I know that people would like to help us, but that is hopeless, because the main Government—

We understand the reasons. A negotiation is going on, but you just want it to be finished.

Lots of people have depression. Our feeling is that we do not know what will happen. Imagine how I sleep with the feeling that I have a mortgage and a small daughter who does not know about anything from my country and who has grown up with the culture here. She does not have other friends—only those from the street and the neighbourhood. Imagine my worries at night about what will happen if I cannot work, pay my mortgage and make her a future. What will happen if she stays here and I have to go back to my country? I did not apply for Polish citizenship for her because I did not see the point, as she has a British passport. I am confused. My job involves working with people. Every day, they come in with worries about Brexit and what will happen, which does not help.

Two weeks ago, I emailed my local MP, because I had heard about settled status. It was the first time that I had heard that the personal residence card is not going to be valid after Brexit, so I contacted him to see whether he could advise me on whether that was true, what he could do and whether I should wait. He never replied. We have tools and we use them but, if MPs do not have answers, how can they help us?

That is the problem. We are all in that position.

I will explore where you get your information from. It strikes me that the picture is complex, and there are on-going negotiations. You said that you get some of your information from the newspapers. Could anything be put in place to give you more support—to ensure that you get constant, updated, authoritative information on what the status is and how the negotiations are progressing? My sense, from people in my constituency and from what you are saying, is that it is difficult for people to get accurate and reliable information.

We need information on what we have to do—100 per cent. Every negotiation gives us nothing new—everything is stuck in one place, in my opinion. We need to know 100 per cent what we have to do—just one decision that tells us what we have to do next.

I wonder whether there should be a national service that people can sign up to for a weekly update.

People can sign up for updates on the Government website. That is what we have done.

There is a lot of information on Facebook, Twitter and so on. I do not know this, but I want to believe that the Government knows who the migrants are and where we are coming from. If the Government has a database of that information, maybe it can send a letter to confirm any new developments if there is an agreement, if we are not going to get permanent residency or if we are going to get it but in a changed form. If I got a letter confirming that, I would not save money for permanent residency and I would wait for settled status, which is what I am doing. I left the idea of permanent residency and I am waiting.

I do not know whether the application process for settled status is open—I have to find out. I would like to get a letter or an email saying, “You are from the EU. This process is open and we are offering you this. We think that you will be able to get it. Here is the information.” If there are any other agreements with the EU, between MPs or whatever—if a decision is made and they know that they are going to open that process after Brexit—we should be told instead of having to find out through Facebook, newspapers, television or word of mouth. There are always going to be rumours.

Exactly. The authorities should certainly pursue that.

I have a second question. We hope that you feel welcome in Scotland. As a nation, we rely on people moving to Scotland, because we need people’s contributions and skills, and many people in Scotland are upset about what is happening. Anecdotally, I have heard that EU nationals now want to move away from Scotland and the UK. I have also heard that their friends and family who were going to come here have changed their minds and are going elsewhere. Will you elaborate on your experience, having spoken to people who have moved to Scotland?

Can I respond to the previous question first? HM Revenue and Customs already has all the information about how long someone has been here and for how many years they have made a contribution to this country. That is easy to find. A person’s personal account at HMRC shows the years of contributions and the years of work. It is easy for the Government to decide which of us has a right to reside here and which has not. It also has information on how many times we have left the country and for how long.

On your second question, what you described is already happening. Eight families from Ewa Smierzynska’s classes decided not to come back to Scotland after the holidays. From my work I know about seven families who are moving to other countries because they do not feel safe here.

In my work, people are asking me whether they will have to depart in 2019. They are wondering what their status here will be and thinking about moving back to Romania or moving somewhere else. We all came here believing that we would have some rights. We had some rights, but we do not know what will happen after Brexit. It is like somebody getting a dog for Christmas then saying, “Sorry—I do not have enough space for you, so I have to send you away to another house.”

At my work, a lot of EU citizens are deciding to leave because they do not know what their future here will be. A few have left and another few are saving to leave—if you are going to start a new life, you need money to do that.

I have been here for seven years. Both my kids were born here—one in London and the other in Kirkcaldy. I refuse to leave—I do not want to leave. I hear that my country is getting better and I want to believe that any family can have a good life there, but I refuse to leave. This is my home.

When we first came to the UK, we lived in London for two years, then we moved to Dunfermline. We feel welcome here. It is so different from London. We are comfortable here and I do not want to leave. This is my home—this is my place. My kids are here; their friends and school are here. There is no point in me starting a new life from zero in another country. Spain is just the country where I was born; I do not feel Spanish any more.

In the next few weeks, we hope to have in front of us David Davis, who is the chief negotiator for the UK Government in Brussels and is negotiating the detail of Brexit. If you were in our position, what would you say to him? What is the answer to the questions that you have asked so effectively this morning? Is it simply that the British Government should accept that European Union citizens who are here should continue to have all the rights that you currently have? Is that essentially what you want the British Government’s position to be in its negotiations with Europe?

Yes.

As Katarzyna Slawek said, the Government already knows which European citizens are here working, paying taxes and having a life, and which are not. We are here to make the UK better. The Government knows that.

The uncertainty that people feel would be removed if the UK Government said that people who are here now will continue to have the same rights as they have had until now.

Yes. That would be much better for us.

10:45  

Good morning. The evidence that we have heard from the witnesses has been extremely powerful, and I thank them for that.

I will take the witnesses back to the reasons why they came to Scotland and the UK in the first place and the issue of free movement in the European Union. How beneficial has that been for you and your friends and family?

My husband and I got married in 2010. I had just finished my college course and he had been unemployed for almost two years. We did not have any plan to come to the UK; I planned to have a job, having studied. One day, my husband and my mum sat me on the sofa and said that we had to leave because it was not fair for him to be unemployed for such a long time. Spain was having a very bad time. Although I hoped to find a job that related to what I had studied, nothing was certain.

We looked to decide which country to go to, because we could move anywhere. I already had a sister who lived in London, although we would have preferred to move to Germany or Norway. However, the language in the UK was easier, and things were easier because my sister was in the UK. We did not speak English, but we could understand some things. Things would be easier because we had studied English in every single school year. We went to my sister’s, and she welcomed us to her house. My husband had been unemployed for two years, but one of us had a job within two weeks.

After two years in London, we decided that things cost too much there, London was too big and too stressful, and travelling to work and back took a long time. We decided to look for something else that was not as stressful. There was an impact on my son’s future in that city, which is so big and has so many people. My husband found a job in Dunfermline and we decided to move. That was five years ago, and we do not regret the move.

If I could go back to my country, maybe I would, but I would not be welcome there. I am getting my higher national certificate accounting qualification here. The law in Spain is different, so I would not be able to be an accountant there.

That is why I moved here. It was easier with my sister in the UK and my knowledge of English.

When we moved, most people asked us whether we went for the benefits. We did not. I do not receive any benefits. We had our son on 24 August 2011. One year after that, we heard that we could apply for working tax credit and child tax credit. I did not even know that. We did not know that we had the right to have benefits.

We have been told a thousand times that we do not need to work. We have two children and the Government pays for them. We have been told that we do not have to work, because the Government will pay for everything, but I refuse to not work. I came here to make a life for myself and my family.

What would we do sitting at home all day? That would be too boring.

That is not for me.

I came up here because I finished at university, I could not find a normal well-paid job 12 years ago in Poland, I could not afford to pay the rent for my house, and my mummy had cancer and needed support.

I came up here and I started to work; I had an interview in a hotel the day after I arrived and I got a job. I worked 80 hours a week for two years to earn money for me and to save some money to buy a house here. I sent the rest of the money to Poland to help my mummy to survive. She is fine now, but it took a long time.

I was unemployed here for just one and a half months; I have worked here for 12 years and made a contribution, including making a contribution to the community, which is amazing. As part of my job, I started a conversation cafe, which helps people to learn English and to be part of the community. Imagine the situation: a small room with more Scottish people in it than the number of people who belong to the conversation cafe. The Scottish people come because they feel happy to talk to us and to support us about the bad feeling about Brexit. That is amazing but, on the other hand, we still do not know what will happen.

Thank you for coming along today and telling us about your experience. I was glad to hear that you feel supported, yet I could not help but feel angry and frustrated at your having been asked whether you came here for the benefits. That is one element of the conversation that angers me because, for one thing, our country’s benefits are really not all that generous.

A lot of you have said that you want to stay here and that this is your home, but have your opinions of Scotland or the UK changed since the referendum?

To be honest, before the Scottish referendum to leave the UK, I hoped that Scotland would not leave the UK so that it would remain in the EU. Now, I hope for another referendum to get rid of the UK and be part of the EU again.

My view of the UK has changed a lot. As I said, if I am not welcome somewhere, I will not stay. That is why I want to stay in Scotland and I do not want to go back to England. Scottish people are really friendly and they are real people—they are human. They treat us as equals, which did not happen when I lived in London. I did not know my neighbours and we could not have friends there because everyone was so busy. Here, we have Scottish friends and friends from other countries—from the EU and from outside the EU. We can make a life here, so the change in my view is that I want Scotland to leave the UK.

Does anyone else want to come in on that question?

I just want to say that I agree.

I would like to thank Richard Lochhead for welcoming us, because I have not heard such words for a long time. When I came here, I was proud to use my language; it was not a problem for me to do that and nobody looked down on me. However, I avoid using my language now, because I feel that other people think that I do not want to be here. I do not know if I can explain that.

When people went to vote and decided to leave the European Union, they thought that on that day, every immigrant would move to a different country, and now Scottish people—or rather British people—feel frustrated because that did not happen. Those people do not feel good about us because we are still here.

Thank you. I can only imagine how frustrating it is to see the negotiations between the EU and the UK Government and know that you cannot have any say in them but can only wait and see what comes out of them. When you look at the different negotiating areas between the two sides, are there specific things that you want to be protected or which have not been considered? Are there some things that need to be discussed in further detail?

I just want to stay here and for things to remain the same as they are now. I do not want to pay for a visa or for my employer to have to pay for a work visa for me because they want me to stay. I want to be free to decide whether I want to stay here or to go somewhere else. I do not want that to change.

We had a panel of lawyers before us last week who talked about that specific issue. Some of them identified specific aspects of the negotiations that could cause problems, one of which was the UK Government’s suggestion that European citizens would have to show a passport to apply for settled status, although many European citizens use identity cards rather than passports. Is that a potential problem?

Probably. In Spain we use both passports and ID cards and we can travel in Europe with either of them with no problem. If I had to choose, I would choose the ID card because it is cheaper and I would not want to pay the extra money for the passport. At the moment, I have no need to use the passport because I do not have plans to go outside Europe.

Could we not just have a Scottish passport? [Laughter.]

Soon.

What I want from the negotiations is for the two sides to discuss us not as numbers that have to be reduced but as people—as real human beings. I do not want them to say that there are so many million migrants and they want to reduce that by such and such a per cent. We are real people, with real lives and real problems and we do real work and have real jobs. My boss is a real boss with a real company and if he loses me, he will have to find someone else. We have to protect everyone—not just the migrants or the British people.

I really appreciate that you guys are taking time to listen to us and to hear about our problems and lives. That is something that the British Government should do. The Government should sit down with a few migrants from the EU and listen to them to understand the problems that they face and the future that they are looking for.

The other issue that has emerged from the negotiations is that the UK Government has not given a cut-off date for settled status, although I know that the EU has been pressing the Government to name a date. Is that a concern for people in your organisation?

11:00  

Just think how many immigrants we have in Scotland and the whole of the UK, and then imagine what would happen if all those people applied at the same time. To be honest, I think that it will be a disaster. The same has happened with the permanent residency card—so many forms are already stacked up to check.

My view is similar to Kasia Slawek’s.

Finally, another difference between the EU and the UK in the negotiations is that, if the EU gets a settlement, it wants EU citizens in this country to have their rights upheld by the European Court of Justice, whereas the UK Government wants the British courts to rule on those rights, with guidance on European law. Is it important to you that your rights are still protected by the European Court of Justice?

In my country, the Strasbourg tribunal is very important, because the political situation has changed so many times and the influences on the courts are especially huge just now. If we want to fight something, the Strasbourg tribunal is the last hope for us. However, I do not meet many people in Scotland who use the Strasbourg tribunal against the courts here.

I do not know what difference the court would make to us, because I am not planning to use it. I do not know anyone who has used it.

When the terrorist attack happened in Barcelona last month, we were just 40 minutes away, so we called the UK consulate in Barcelona, but they could not help because we are not British. I was in contact with Spanish authorities, but they could not help because I am not Spanish and I have residency in the UK. I belong to nowhere so, if I want help somewhere outside the UK, I cannot get it. I am not sure whether that is to do with Brexit, but it really needs to be checked. I do not have a permanent residency card, because I know that it will not be valid after Brexit, and I am waiting for settled status, so I have nothing to prove that I live here. That needs to be checked. We need to be protected when we are outside the UK.

That sounds like an issue with the present position. I am curious about what you were trying to get from the Spanish Government as an EU citizen in Spain that it could not give you.

Basically, we wanted to know if we were protected and where we could and could not travel. We were on holiday, so all the information that we had came through the news and the media, and nothing was clear.

Who did you ask for advice? Was it the police?

In Spain, it was the police—the Mossos—and the only thing that they could say was that, if we were going to Barcelona, we should not go there by car. We had to take the plane two days later, so we wanted to know if we would need more time because of more checks or whatever. We wanted information, but there was no place to get it because we are from nowhere.

I ask because I asked earlier whether you want to retain the rights you currently have. However, if your current status creates a difficulty in the way that you describe, that clearly raises other questions about the relationship.

It was a difficult moment. It is a very difficult question, but I do not belong to anywhere when I am out of the UK, because I cannot prove that I live in the UK. I just have a Spanish passport, but I do not live in Spain.

Rachael Hamilton has a final question.

I will change the subject slightly. Thank you for coming along today. We know that the hospitality and agriculture sectors are reliant on migrant labour. Do your friends or family work in seasonal labour? You will pretty much have settled status, as you have all lived here for quite a long time—possibly over five years; I made some notes at the start of the session. How is seasonal migrant labour going to work in the future in the agriculture and hospitality sectors, particularly in Fife?

We are in contact with a few farms and hotels in Fife that need people to work for them. They do not have anybody, as people have decided to move or to work in a different area that will better safeguard their status. My work colleague Colm was in hospital in Fife and the people who took care of him were immigrants. I cannot imagine a situation—I hope that it will never happen—in which immigrants do not take those jobs. What would happen to this country? What would happen to Great Britain? We are everywhere: we work in hospitals, on farms, in hotels and in shops. The nurses, the cleaners, the people who produce your food and the people who deliver it—most of those people are migrants. I cannot imagine, one day, those people giving up and going on strike. This country would stop.

I remember someone posting on Facebook—maybe it was last year—the idea that, for one day, immigrants should not go to work. How many immigrants did not go to work? Everybody went to work, because we care about our jobs and respect you because you welcome us and give us possibilities. So, no immigrants stopped going to work on that day—everybody went to work.

We are slightly over time, so I will draw the evidence session to a close. I thank you all very much for taking the time to come here. As we have heard, you are all hard-working people and you have had to take time off work to attend the meeting. We very much appreciate that. As committee members have said, you are very welcome in Scotland, and the committee will work hard to get answers to some of the questions that you have raised today.

Thank you very much, convener. If you would like to come and see how we work and the problems that people face in their everyday lives, you are welcome to visit the Fife Migrants Forum office.

Thank you very much for that invitation.

11:08 Meeting continued in private until 11:27.