Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of providing non-UK EU nationals with identification documentation after the UK leaves the EU.

Work is underway to scope the requirements of the system for EU citizens living in the UK to obtain settled status. It is too early to determine the precise requirement for administering the new settlement scheme and administrative costs of this, as this is dependent on the detail of what is agreed during negotiations with the European Union. Further detail will be confirmed as these details become known.

The Government’s policy paper (Cm 9464), which was laid before Parliament on 26 June, sets out our proposals that EU citizens who arrive in the UK before the specified date and have five years’ continuous residence in the UK will be able to apply for UK settled status.

We will publish further detail on the specifics of the new application process for settled status in due course.