Recommendation 23

It is to the Home Office’s credit that more than three million grants of status under the EU Settlement Scheme have been made with more than a year to go to the deadline. However, our concern has always been for vulnerable people and others who will find it difficult to apply, and in many cases it will be people in these groups who will be particularly affected by impacts of Covid-19. Once the crisis abates, we call on the Home Office to step up its efforts to support those who have not yet applied to the EU Settlement Scheme to do so. We call on the Home Office to provide us with details—updated as a result of the pandemic—of the measures it is taking to identify and provide support to individuals who are yet to apply for status. We also call on the Home Office to explain clearly the approach it will take to late applications from those who may not have known they were required to apply to the scheme, and what work it will undertake, if any, to assess the numbers of eligible citizens who have not yet applied.