Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of EU citizens who may miss the deadline for applications to the EU Settlement Scheme of 30 June 2021; and what steps she plans to take in response to people missing that deadline.

The Home Office publishes data on the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) in the ‘EU Settlement Scheme statistics’, with more than 5.6 million applications received to 31 May 2021.

Our focus remains on encouraging those EU citizens and their family members eligible for the scheme who have yet to apply to do so before the 30 June 2021 deadline for those resident in the UK by the end of the transition period.

The published figures refer specifically to applications made to the EUSS and cannot be directly compared with estimates of the resident population of EU citizens in the UK. The published figures include non-EEA citizen family members, Irish citizens and eligible EEA citizens not resident in the UK, none of whom are usually included in estimates of the resident EU citizen population.

Furthermore, the population estimates do not take account of people’s migration intentions and will include people who have come to the UK for a range of purposes, including some who have no intention to settle in the UK.

In line with the Citizens’ Rights Agreements, the Government has already made clear where a person eligible for status under the EUSS has reasonable grounds for missing the 30 June deadline 2021, they will be given a further opportunity to apply. Guidance as to the approach we will adopt to this was published on 1 April 2021. It can be found at:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-settlement-scheme-caseworker-guidance