The UK and Switzerland have completed a transitional agreement to protect existing social security coordination arrangements. This means that UK and Swiss citizens are now safeguarded whatever the circumstances of the UK’s exit from the EU.

The agreement guarantees that existing social security entitlements – including reciprocal healthcare – will continue until the end of December 2020 for both UK and Swiss nationals and for EU citizens who move to, travel to or work in the UK or Switzerland during this period.

This means that these social security rights will be protected for a transitional period between exit day and the end of December 2020 in the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal, ensuring that citizens can continue to access vital protections and have their right to do so provided for in law.

UK nationals will have the same social security coordination cover in Switzerland as now between exit day and the end of December 2020. This means, for example, that a UK national who is UK-insured and who goes to Switzerland on holiday after exit will continue to have cover under the European Health Insurance Card scheme. UK nationals will also continue to be subject to only one country’s social security scheme at a time, meaning a worker will only have to pay into one country’s scheme.

This agreement will not suspend or supersede the UK-Swiss Citizens’ Rights Agreement. UK and Swiss nationals covered by the Citizens’ Rights Agreement will continue to have their rights under that agreement protected after the end of 2020.

It will apply from the day that the United Kingdom exits the European Union and will be published in due course.

Brexit Minister James Duddridge said:

This agreement ensures that UK nationals moving or travelling to Switzerland after we leave, and Swiss nationals moving or travelling to the UK, will have the same social security protections they currently do for a transitional period after exit.

It provides certainty to citizens and their families who wish to move between our two countries after we leave the EU.

Further Information

The UK-Swiss Citizens’ Rights agreement was signed on 25th February 2019 and ensures that UK and Swiss nationals living in each other’s countries at the end of the implementation period will be able to continue enjoying broadly the same rights as they do now. This includes arrangements on residency, access to healthcare, pensions and education, social security coordination and mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

A woman who lied about the existence of a child and blackmailed her victim into paying her large sums has had her sentence increased following an intervention by the Solicitor General, The Rt Hon Michael Ellis QC MP.

Chelsea Roberts, aged 26, started to ask the victim for money for a child she said they had conceived together. Unbeknownst to the victim, the child never existed.

Roberts initially requested money for an abortion, then for missed and cancelled abortion appointments. The offender then lied about giving birth and claimed that the baby was sick and required healthcare in order to ask the victim for more money. She then proceeded to seek more money which she claimed was for supporting the adoption process and eventually for a funeral, after the offender told the victim their child had died.

Over a period of about a year the victim transferred around £29,000 to Roberts. This comprised all his savings and required him to take out several loans, incurring serious debt. On the occasions when the victim asked for proof, refused to pay or claimed that he was being blackmailed; Roberts threatened to tell his girlfriend and family of their relationship. She also threatened to accuse the victim of rape.

Roberts was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment in the Crown Court at Hull in September this year. Following a referral to the Court of Appeal by the Solicitor General, on 31 October the sentence was found to be unduly lenient and has been increased to a sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment, suspended for 2 years.

After the hearing the Solicitor General said:

“Roberts’ fictitious and malicious web of lies caused serious emotional and financial harm to the victim. It is therefore right that her sentence be increased to reflect the amount of harm caused.”

The two-day conference supports the global effort to eliminate chemical weapons and fosters co-operation through the exchange of information and ideas relating to safe disposal.

The next CWD Conference will be held in May 2020, London. In addition to having the opportunity to hear from world experts in the field, the conference includes multiple networking opportunities, including a drinks reception and dinner on the first evening.

Each year the conference brings together representatives from 53 organisations from 13 countries and is the world’s largest international gathering of professionals involved in the demilitarisation of chemical weapons. Many delegates hold senior policy positions within government, the armed forces, industry, academia and research and development establishments.

The CWD Conference provides a unique opportunity to showcase the global progress in chemical weapons destruction and enables delegates to develop their knowledge and understanding with a common goal: working together to achieve a safer, cleaner world.

Oral and poster presentation for the CWD Conference 2020 will cover the following themes, and we welcome abstract submissions on these areas:

• Progress on global CW destruction
• Solutions to destruction challenges
• Emerging risks – strategic and operational
• Forensics, analysis and attribution
• Elimination research and development

For more information, and to register for CWD Conference 2020 please email: cwdconference@dstl.gov.uk

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Publishing the report, David Bolt said:

Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports are respectively the sixth and eighth busiest airports in the UK for passenger traffic. This inspection looked at both, comparing and contrasting where relevant. In terms of the overall management of border security at the two airports, by means of the usual immigration and customs controls, the inspection found Border Force to be broadly efficient and effective. However, there were criticisms from the airport operators and from passengers about the immigration queues, not helped by the absence of a robust, standardised way of measuring queuing times.

A number of areas for improvement were identified at both airports. Some of these were beyond the local Border Force management to resolve, raising the question of how visible they were to Border Force regional and top management and who “owned” the risks. My recommendations were aimed at clarifying this.

The report makes just three recommendations, one related to queue measurement and the other two focused on ensuring that Border Force operational managers, not just at Glasgow and Edinburgh, understand and articulate their risks thoroughly and consistently. At Glasgow and Edinburgh this means engaging more effectively with the airport operators, ensuring that staff ‘rostering’ is efficient and seen as reasonable, maximising ePassport gate uptake, improving the recording and quality assurance of decisions, and ensuring that safeguarding strategies and actions test for new or changing threats as well as targeting known “high risk” flights.

Border Force has accepted all three of my recommendations. It has made some headway with each but is moving more slowly than I might have hoped (the report was sent to the Home Secretary on 13 June). I will therefore be keen to see how far it has been able to progress the work it is doing on risk management and queue measurement by the end of 2019.

Published 31 October 2019