On Thursday 27 March a representation of Citizens Rights Project – Noelia Martinez (CEO), Agota Rauktyte (Outreach and Link Officer), and Paweł Kopeć (Outreach Officer) travelled to London to meet with Scottish MPs. Thanks to the help of Chris Murray MP (our local MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, who has been very supportive of our work), we hosted a presentation in the Palace of Westminster for which we invited all MPs representing their Scottish constituencies in the UK Parliament.
In our presentation we showcased how our migrant-lead approach to working with EU communities can bring positive change to their lives and help them to feel as equal part of the Scottish society. We highlighted our successful cooperation with a vast range of local communities and support organisations in our mission to reach as many vulnerable migrants in Scotland as possible. We also spent our time pointing out several urgent issues both in immigration and welfare that affect the lives of our service users, by referring to the data we have been able to gather in our recent reports (such as our latest Annual Report, Briefing on Supporting EU Migrants, or Link Service Report) as well as sharing some of our most complex case studies from the past few months.
We are very thankful to those Scottish MPs who decided to attend our presentation, representing different political parties in variety of constituencies (from big cities to more rural areas). Some of them were very keen to develop further cooperation with us and some came with specific cases affecting their migrant constituents. We sincerely hope that this meeting in London was the first step into the fruitful cooperation to deliver our services in different regions of Scotland.
Member of Parliament (MP) can assist with matters that are reserved to the UK Parliament such as immigration or some benefits that fall under the responsibility of Department of Work and Pension (DWP) e.g. Universal Credit. Other matters that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament such as healthcare, education, housing policy, some benefits by Social Security Scotland, and others can be assisted by Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP).
If you ever need help from your local MP or MSP, you can find your representative via the links below: