Committees

Committee seeks reassurances from Home Secretary about EU Settlement Scheme

3 April 2019

The EU Justice Sub-Committee has written again to Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, Home Secretary to push for reassurances that were not provided in his recent letter to the Committee

Chair's comments

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, Chair of the Sub-Committee, said

"We are reassured on some aspects of the EU Settlement Scheme, but more needs to be done to ensure that it is fit for purpose and does not lead to problems in future. We are pressing the Home Secretary for further information about our key concerns, and seeking to make constructive proposals for improvements. In particular, we remain very concerned about the Government's resistance to providing physical proof of status, and we are asking why the centralised system cannot work in tandem with physical proof."

The EU Justice Sub-Committee has asked for a response within ten days.

Concerns

The Committee's letter sets out their key concerns and seeks clarity on points that were not addressed in his recent letter:

  • The timescales for the abolition of the fee and for issuing refunds;
  • Further justification of the department's opposition to providing physical proof of status;
  • Further details of the reminder system that is being considered for citizens who have pre-settled to apply for settled status;
  • Details of the assessment of the adequacy of the £9million allocated to assisting vulnerable applicants, compared to the estimated scale of that population (10-20% of EEA citizens in the UK);
  • The rationale for placing a limit of ten on the number of documents that an applicant can upload, and an assessment of the number of people who will be affected by this limit; and
  • Further details about data-sharing within the Home Office, in particular between the EU Settlement team and the EU Removals team.

Further information