Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending the deadline for EU citizens applying for settled status in response to difficulties in renewing passports and national identity cards during the covid-19 pandemic.

We have continued to receive and process thousands of applications a day to the scheme throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 5.1 million applications received and more than 4.8 million applications concluded by 28 February 2021. There are no plans to extend the deadline for applications to the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS).

Support for applicants who need it has remained available, including from the network of 72 organisations across the UK grant-funded by the Home Office to help vulnerable people apply to the EUSS.

Published guidance for EUSS applicants on the impact of COVID-19, including the scope for them to provide alternative evidence of identity and nationality if they do not have a valid passport or national identity card, is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-eu-settlement-scheme-guidance-for-applicants.

In line with the Withdrawal Agreement, the Government has been clear, where a person has reasonable grounds for missing the 30 June 2021 deadline for applications to the EUSS by EU citizens and their family members resident in the UK by the end of the transition period, they will be given a further opportunity to apply.

Non-exhaustive guidance will be published in the near future on what constitutes such reasonable grounds, to underpin a flexible and pragmatic approach to considering late applications under the EUSS.