The Lord Bishop of Leeds – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Lord Bishop of Leeds on 2016-02-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications of a decision by the UK to leave the EU for those UK nationals resident in other EU member states.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

There are approximately 2 million UK citizens living, working and travelling in the other 27 Member States of the EU. They all currently enjoy a range of specific rights to live, to work and access to pensions, health care and public services that are only guaranteed because of EU law. There would be no requirement under EU law for these rights to be maintained if the UK left the EU. Should an agreement be reached to maintain these rights, the expectation must be that this would have to be reciprocated for EU citizens in the UK.