Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many officials her Department plans to have working on the new Biometric residence permits system.

We have been assessing the number of people who will have BRPs that expire at the end 2024 and who will have leave extending beyond that date, however, this data is not yet available. We are making plans to enable these people to transition to an eVisa before the end of 2024. More information on how to do this will be made available on gov.uk later this year.

Our aim is to fully transition to eVisas by the end of 2024 and for this reason we are no longer issuing BRPs with an expiry date after 2024, even when the person’s permission will expire after that date, nor are we redesigning physical BRPs or introducing new fines associated with them.

The BRP system forms part of our wider immigration and border system and is supported by officials across the department. In most circumstances, holders of current BRPs are expected to return them to UKVI when they make a new application or when their BRP has expired.

The “Code of practice about the sanctions for non-compliance with the biometric registration regulations” sets out the rules which govern the issuance of civil penalties. Where a holder of a biometric immigration document such as a BRP fails to comply with one of the requirements of the regulations, we may issue them with a civil financial penalty but are not required to do so.

Once we cease issuing BRPs and existing ones have expired and been removed from circulation, there will be no further BRPs issued, and they will have no extant use.

We keep resourcing under regular review to ensure we have the staff in place to deliver and support the transition from physical to digital proof of status.