EU regulations

The team have been working with others in the sector to raise concerns over the recent draft regulations. These regulations concern:

EEA and Swiss citizens’ (or their family members’) rights during the grace period i.e. 1 January 2021 to 30 June 2021;
Frontier Workers; and
Restrictions of rights of entry and residence.

In relation to the grace period regulations, we sent a letter to the Home Office expressing concerns around the requirement to be ‘lawfully resident’ at the end of the transition period. [1]

Lawful residence requires a person to have a right of residence under the EEA Regulations 2016, or to have acquired permanent residence and then not have been absent from the UK for more than five continuous years, immediately before 31 December 2020. This definition means that someone who is not exercising Treaty rights on 31 December will not be lawfully resident in the UK during the grace period, notwithstanding that they are entitled to apply under the EU Settlement Scheme. We received a response from the Home Office on 21 October. [2] It confirmed that:

“An EEA or Swiss citizen or their family member who is resident in the UK at the end of the transition period but who does not have permanent residence and is not exercising Treaty rights – as a worker, self-employed person, self-sufficient person, student or family member – will still be able to apply to the scheme by the deadline of 30 June 2021. They will not have residence rights under EEA free movement rules to be protected during the grace period, which is their current position, and they will not be able to start exercising free movement rights in the UK after free movement to the UK has ended at the end of the transition period.”

ILPA’s letter has received attention in the Eighth Delegated Legislation Committee [3] and the House of Lords Library [4]. We continue to press on this and related issues as the transition period draws in.