Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to her oral contribution of 16 April 2018, Official Report, column 27, on Windrush Children (Immigration Status), what steps her Department is taking to ensure that EU citizens eligible to apply for settled status do not face similar problems.

As we design and deliver the Settlement Scheme, we are learning the lessons from other parts of the immigration system – including the existing permanent residence process and Windrush cases. At the end of the implementation period in December 2020 every EU citizen, and their family members, living in the UK at that time will be eligible for a status to stay in the UK and to apply for settled status once they have been resident for five consecutive years, subject to criminality checks.

The Home Office is producing a new, simplified digital system for applications for settled status. Their status will be recorded electronically and the Home Office will have a permanent record of EU citizens and their family members who are living here with settled status. People will have plenty of time to make an application – until June 2021 – and we will take a proportionate approach to those who miss the deadline for a good reason. A digital awareness-raising campaign is already underway, and communications will increase as we approach the launch of the scheme, so that those affected know what they need to do.