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Chamber and committees

EU Settled Status Tokens

  • Submitted by: Maggie Chapman, North East Scotland, Scottish Green Party.
  • Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 June 2021
  • Motion reference: S6M-00414

That the Parliament notes the calls from EU citizen rights organisations such as the3million to better protect the rights of EU citizens living in the UK; further notes the calls for a physical token that provides proof or trusted verification of settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS); believes that the current settled status arrangements disproportionately shift administrative responsibility for verifying the legal residency status of EU-27 migrants in the UK to employers, banks, landlords, healthcare providers and others from 1 July 2021 onwards; understands that, for this purpose, EUSS holders are supplied solely with a digital code, which they must pass to those legally obliged to confirm the legal residency rights of an EU citizen in the UK; considers that updates to this system can take weeks or months to process, are often unreliable and present a similar danger of data loss experienced by the Windrush generation; believes that the administrative burden of this process alone is highly likely to cause discrimination against EU nationals in everyday life in Scotland; understands that the UK Government has yet to accede to the request to provide a physical token in addition to the digital record; regrets the uncertainty that it considers this has caused and expresses both empathy and solidarity with EU citizens adversely affected by the changes to their lives and rights since the UK exit from the EU, and requests that the Scottish Government urgently supplies a physical token, to be made available on request by EU citizens residing in Scotland, which verifies their residency has been confirmed using the UK Government's online platform, in order to enable EU citizens to demonstrate their status has been confirmed at a previous stage, and to alleviate what it sees as the administrative burden placed unduly on Scotland’s public-facing bodies, service providers and organisations, and to mitigate the likelihood of discrimination in public life resulting from what it sees as the additional administrative and bureaucratic burden inherent to the EUSS.


Supported by: Ariane Burgess, Ross Greer, Patrick Harvie, Gillian Mackay, Mark Ruskell, Lorna Slater