Health care pledge for UK tourists
Britons guaranteed free treatment in Europe as Davis sets out negotiating position on migrant rights
BRITISH tourists will be guaranteed free health cover when they are on holiday in the EU, David Davis has disclosed, as the Government prepared to publish its detailed Brexit negotiating position on migrants’ rights.
The Brexit Secretary will ask the EU to continue with the current European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) scheme, and said that if Brussels refuses, the Government will foot the £155million a year bill.
Mr Davis gave fresh details of what will be in a 12-page document sent to the EU today setting out Britain’s position on migrant rights, which will form the basis for tough head-to-head negotiations over the coming weeks.
He said EU citizens will have to undergo criminal record checks when they apply for “settled status” that will allow them to remain in Britain for life and promised to deport anyone who is considered undesirable.
After Brexit, the Home Secretary will only have to prove that removing EU citizens would be “conducive to the public good” in order to deport them rather than proving that they are a serious threat to the “fundamental interests” of society as the current EU directives require.
Mr Davis also reiterated the Government’s so-called red line on judicial oversight of migrants’ rights, saying the European Court of Justice (ECJ) would have no jurisdiction over EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit.
A week after Brexit negotiations officially got under way, the Government will today publish its negotiating position on the rights of three million EU citizens living in the UK and one million Britons living in the EU – the first detailed paper on any aspect of its
Brexit stance.
Last week Theresa May set out the broad outlines of the deal she is offering migrants, saying EU citizens already living here would be given the same rights as Britons but without any oversight from the ECJ.
Mr Davis put meat on the bones yesterday as he was interviewed on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, saying: “We’re looking to see if we can get a continuation of the EHIC scheme as it now exists and, of course, if we can’t get one then we would provide one unilaterally.”
Whitehall sources confirmed that if the EHIC scheme was scrapped, a new arrangement would begin on the day Britain leaves the EU so that travellers “won’t notice any difference”.
Critics suggested that Mr Davis had damaged his negotiating hand by admitting that Britain would pay for travellers’ health insurance if the EU did not keep the EHIC scheme.
Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrat MP, said: “This shows how desperate the Government is. They have failed to plan properly for Brexit and are now willing to let British taxpayers pick up the pieces.
“David Davis inspires about as much confidence as a drunken trapeze artist,
but it is the country as a whole that will suffer when he comes crashing to the floor.”
Mr Davis also said the Government would “unilaterally” guarantee that British citizens living in the EU would continue to receive index-linked state pensions.
The Brexit Secretary admitted he could not be “100 per cent sure” a deal would be agreed, saying: “At the end of the day the key in any negotiation, it’s not about sort of macho clashing of antlers, it’s about finding the place that suits both sides and that is what we are about.”
He said he believed European leaders would come under pressure from “the German car industry, Bavarian farmers, French farmers, Italian white goods manufacturers, you name it” to strike a trade deal because the EU has a £60 billion trade surplus with the UK.
Although there is no way the Government will allow the ECJ to have any say over citizens’ rights, Mr Davis said, it was possible there would be an “arbitration arrangement” as part of transitional arrangements.
Baroness Chakrabarti, the shadow attorney general, said Labour might not have “complete control” over migration if it got into power, and even suggested some form of free movement might continue.
She said: “It may be called something else but what it is called doesn’t matter. What is important is that jobs come first, the economy comes first and that means getting tariff-free access to the single market and the formalities we will negotiate.”
Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury urged Theresa May to set up a cross-party commission to advise her to “draw much of the poison” from the debate.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the Rt Rev Justin Welby warned that it would be a “disaster” if Britain’s negotiators went into bat against the “united determination of the EU” without knowing they had the full confidence of the people.
But Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, rejected the Archbishop’s argument, telling BBC Radio Five Live: “This isn’t about commissions…our job as government now is obviously securing the right deal for the country and not rerunning those arguments of Remain and Leave from last year.”