UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid has written to Welsh MPs, telling them they will be allowed to ‘continue their lives here’ after Britain leaves the EU. In the letter he also expresses how proud he is of EU citizens.
Labour MP for Cardiff Central, Jo Stevens, has taken to social media to voice her bemusement at a letter that she and Welsh Labour colleague, Carolyn Harris, MP for Swansea East, received from the Home Secretary. It outlined “his commitment” to assuring they will have settled residence status in the UK.
Stevens tweeted on Thursday: “Both me & @carolynharris24 have had a letter from @sajidjavid today telling us how proud he is that we, as #EUcitizens have made our home in the UK & this is a step towards his commitment that we can continue our lives here. Is it because we are Welsh, Sajid?” Harris replied to Stevens’ tweet saying “Im chuffed he noticed us x.”
Stevens’ revelation prompted some humorous reactions on Twitter with one follower telling the Cardiff Central MP she should reply back to Javid in Welsh to convey much thanks, which might inadvertently convince the Home Secretary that “you require an English language test,” to stay in the UK.
However, Stevens seemingly wanted to avoid trivializing the issue too much as she asked: “How can we possibly have any confidence the Home Office will deal with applications fairly, promptly & accurately?"
It comes after Javid announced that nearly 4 million EU citizens would be able to claim settled status if they could complete some basic online questions correctly - adding that decisions would be made quickly and all applications would be handled with the presumption that they will be approved.
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Javid said: “Throughout, we will be looking to grant, not for reasons to refuse. I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge, but the Home Office already issues around seven million passports and three million visas each year, and so processing applications on the scale required is not new to us,” reports the Telegraph.
Under the proposals outlined by Javid, any EU national who comes to the UK by the end of December 2020 will have the right to settled status, as long as they pay the £65 (£32.50 for children) application fee.
An EU citizen with settled UK status would then be permitted to bring in parents, grandparents, siblings, boyfriends or girlfriends under the new scheme, denoting a much better deal than other migrants who wish to live and work here.
The Home Office has been lambasted recently for poor treatment of the Windrush generation, who arrived in the UK from Caribbean nations after World War II to address labor shortages. Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd and her predecessor, Theresa May, were singled out for their roles in the debacle that saw many of that generation denied services, losing their jobs and face deportation.
This faux pas may be genuine attempt by Javid to instill some kind of humanity to a department that is in need of a serious image makeover.
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Source: rt uk
