Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the update to the EU Settlement Scheme caseworker guidance on late applications and the section on children in care and care leavers in that guidance, whether care leavers who are aged 18-25 years at the deadline are included in the children in care and care leavers category as having reasonable grounds to make out of time applications.

In line with the Citizens’ Rights Agreements, there remains scope, indefinitely, for a person eligible for status under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) to make a late application to the scheme where there are reasonable grounds for their failure to meet the deadline applicable to them.

We would consider it reasonable grounds for a late application to be made where a local authority failed in its duty to support a care leaver aged 18 to 25 in making an in-time application to the EUSS.

As made clear on many occasions the guidance published on 1 April is not exhaustive. We will take a pragmatic and flexible approach to cases in light of the particular circumstances of each application