The EU rights and Brexit Hub is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (a public body). The project offers a unique, specialist, free second-tier advice and advocacy service on EU welfare rights.

Based in The Baroness Hale Legal Clinic at York Law School, University of York the service opened in September 2020 and operates as a nationwide hub offering advice and support remotely.

What cases can we help with?

There are a number of avenues for support with settled status applications, and we are not seeking to replicate those.

We are looking at cases involving EU or EEA nationals seeking to access public services – for example, through making claims or appeals relating to welfare benefits. We would also be interested in cases relating to access to public sector housing, healthcare, education, and other related services.

We have a dedicated template skeleton argument to assist advisers with cases involving pre-settled status and access to benefits (Fratila-style cases).

By way of some examples, we hope to help with:

• problems interpreting/understanding the law

• decision maker error

• delays in decision making

• problems with evidencing rights (including problems posed by the digital nature of settled status)

• problems relating to decisions on a ‘right to reside’ to access benefits

• communication problems or obstacles faced by the client

• confusion created by cross-border movement

• direct or indirect nationality discrimination

• direct or indirect sex, gender, age or disability discrimination

This is not an exhaustive list! Some problems will be unexpected; we are interested in any kind of obstacle encountered. 

What is  second-tier  advice and who can contact the clinic?

The EU Rights and Brexit Hub can provide advice and advocacy support to those who are working with EU/EEA nationals and their family members to access welfare benefits and public services. We are working primarily with charitable advice organisations, even if EU nationals only make up a small proportion of their clients, and with local council welfare and social housing advisers, MPs and their caseworkers.

The hub is nation-wide – so we welcome requests from across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Unfortunately, we are not set up to manage cases or provide advice directly to clients, but will be happy to signpost clients to organisations who may be able to help, and then consult us to support their work on your case.

What should I include in the consultation request?

Please include a filled in consultation form, consent form and any relevant documents you think may be useful and email them to law-eurightshub@york.ac.uk.

Please ensure that documents are anonymised

Examples of documents you may want to include:

• Correspondence from HMRC/DWP/local authority/ Home Office

• Status under EUSS

• Certificate of residence

• Worker registration documentation   

Consult the Hub

To request consultation for a case please fill in the consultation form and consent form below and send both to: law-eurightshub@york.ac.uk.

For information on participating in the research please see the project information sheet.

Once we receive your email we will respond to you within 5 working days to let you know if we can provide advice. If we have limited availability, we will select according to suitability of the case.

Provide evidence

We are interested in collecting evidence from advisers about your experience of assisting EEA nationals and their family members access public services in the UK.

If you don’t have a specific case for consultation but have some experience that you’d like to share please email law-eurightshub@york.ac.uk or find out more on our evidence gathering page.