European Union Citizens

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:26 pm on 2 February 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:26, 2 February 2021

Well, Llywydd, I completely agree with Huw Irranca-Davies. It has surely been one of our great success stories that we have persuaded people from other parts of the world to come and make their future part of our future here in Wales. And they bring with them, as Huw Irranca-Davies said, not simply the skills that they bring and the economic opportunities that they help us to create, but they bring that cultural richness that comes from having people from other parts of the world part of Welsh society and Welsh communities. And it is a mixed message, to put it at its politest, that the UK Government, while on the one hand claiming to encourage EU nationals to stay here in Wales, quietly slips out the fact that those people are now to be treated within the UK Government's voluntary return scheme. Well, we can't have it both ways, Llywydd. Either we are all working hard to encourage them to stay, or we're putting in arrangements to help them to leave. And here in Wales, we want to encourage them to stay, for all the reasons that Huw Irranca-Davies has said. It's why we have put £2 million of Welsh Government money into specialist advice to help people with settled status applications; it's why we've extended the contract with the Citizens Advice bureaux to the end of June to make sure that they're there right up to the last minute, helping people with what they need.

And my view is that the date by which settled status can be applied for should be extended beyond 30 June. What we are learning is that, in the coronavirus context, for people who have language challenges, trying to do it remotely, trying to do it over the phone, trying to do it by filling in forms—it is putting barriers in the paths of people who want to stay and whom we want to stay, but where face-to-face advice has been much more difficult to organise. Just more time to allow those people to complete the process in the way that the UK Government says they would wish to see would be to everybody's benefit, and we continue to make sure that we make that case to the UK Government, because we want to see those people who make such a positive contribution to Welsh life able to go on doing so.