PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Immigration: Health Insurance (20 July 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to remove the requirement for people with Settled Status to hold Comprehensive Sickness Insurance when applying for British citizenship.

Asked by:
Darren Jones (Labour)

To meet the statutory requirements for naturalisation, a person of any nationality must have been in the UK lawfully during the residential qualifying period.

EEA Regulations set out the requirements which EEA nationals needed to follow if they wished to reside here lawfully on the basis of free movement. In the case of students or the self-sufficient, but not those who were working here, the possession of comprehensive sickness insurance has always been a requirement. This position has not changed since the UK left the European Union

The British Nationality Act allows us to exercise discretion over this requirement in the special circumstances of any particular case.

There are no current plans to amend legislation in this respect given they reflect EEA rules on Freedom of Movement.

Answered by:
Kevin Foster (Conservative)
28 July 2020