CHARGES and checks faced by EU nationals who want to stay in UK after Brexit have been branded “outrageous” by a senior SNP MP.
The Home Office revealed yesterday that a new immigration scheme for EU citizens is set to receive its first applications within weeks.
It said it hopes to begin testing the online platform with a small number of real cases from the end of the summer, ahead of a phased roll-out later this year.
Applicants will have to pay £65, which the Home Office says is the same as the current fee for a permanent residence document and £10.50 less than the minimum for a standard British passport.
The fee will be £32.50 for children under the age of 16, but free for those who already have permanent residence documents.
EU citizens and family members who have been in the UK for five years by the end of 2020 will be able to apply for “settled status”, meaning they are free to go on living and working in the UK indefinitely.
Those who have arrived by December 31, 2020, but do not have five years’ residence, can seek to stay until they do.
SNP MP Joanna Cherry said: “It is outrageous that the UK Government is demanding sums of money from EU nationals who have lived here for years, and whose presence makes an immensely positive contribution to the UK. The principle should be that no EU citizen living in the UK should suffer as a result of the Brexit outcome, which they, of course, had no vote in.
“The Scottish Government has already pledged to pay the fee for people working in the public sector in Scotland. The UK Government should go further and abandon charging a fee altogether. There is no justification for forcing people already legally living and working here to pay a fee to confirm what the UK Government already knows.”
Applicants will be asked to prove their identity with a passport or ID card, declare any criminal convictions and upload a facial photograph.
The Home Office will check employment and benefits data and applications will be run through UK criminality and security databases.
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