Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-10-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many European Economic Area citizens in the UK have permanent residence cards; and how many applications for such cards there have been in each of the last 12 months.

Mr Robert Goodwill

Under EU law, European Economic Area (EEA) nationals qualify for a right of permanent residence in the UK provided that certain conditions are met. The Prime Minister has been clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living in the UK, and the only circumstances in which that would not be possible are if British citizens’ rights in other EU Member States were not protected in return in the course of agreement with the EU.

For those EEA nationals who are in the UK and have a right of permanent residence, it is not mandatory to apply for documentation confirming that right. Statistics of decisions and grants of permanent residence documentation issued to EEA nationals are published quarterly in table ee_02_q of Immigration Statistics. The most recent edition is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2016/list-of-tables#european-economic-area-eea