Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to plan for processing new residence documents as outlined in Article 18 of the EU Withdrawal Agreement.

The Home Office is introducing the EU Settlement Scheme to enable EU citizens who have chosen to make their lives here to obtain the UK immigration status they need in accordance with Article 18 of the Withdrawal Agreement.

The Scheme will be fully open by 30 March 2019 and will be delivered through a streamlined, digital application process. In preparation, the Scheme entered private beta testing in August and is now in the second phase of that testing. This approach is now standard for the launch of new government services and enables the system and processes to be tested to ensure that they work effectively before being fully introduced.