The government is facing fresh calls to issue a physical document to prove EU citizens have the right to reside after Brexit
As fears over discrimination, loss of identity and a continuing lack of trust in the government’s willingness to deliver guaranteed lifetime rights grow, a report has found that nine out of 10 EU, European Economic Area and Swiss citizens (together, “EU Citizens”) in the UK would prefer a card or some sort of physical document over the digital evidence they have now to demonstrate their right to remain in the country after they have been granted settled or pre-settled status.
At present, the settled status process consists of an electronic registration system which does not issue any physical evidence to approved persons upon completion of an application.
The report, conducted in conjunction with Northumbria University and the campaign group the3million, represents the largest survey of EU Citizens undertaken in the UK to date, and was issued just days after the UK government gave the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator assurances that EU Citizens would not be automatically deported if they failed to apply for the settled status scheme. The results are said to highlight a loss of trust in the UK government as certainty in the form of a tangible document would give EU Citizens some comfort where verbal assurances have failed and would also make it easier to prove to employers, banks or landlords a right to remain.
The withdrawal agreement does not require the UK government to give papers or ID cards to EU Citizens, and government sources say discrimination by employers or landlords would be illegal. The Home Office has maintained that a digital solution is better than a physical document as it “future-proofs” a person’s rights and is linked to their passport or ID card, while physical documents can get lost, stolen, or damaged.
The European parliament had also raised concerns that EU Citizens living in the UK after it leaves the bloc risk discrimination in jobs and housing because the government will not issue physical documents under the settled status scheme. Some of this uncertainty and fear was caused when the Home Office minister Brandon Lewis told a German newspaper in October 2019 that EU Citizens risk being deported if they fail to apply for settled status, the scheme to secure their rights as UK residents, by the end of 2020. In a resolution backed by a majority of MEPs in Strasbourg, the parliament said the British government’s conflicting announcements about special status had caused uncertainty and anxiety for EU Citizens who had made the UK their home.
The European parliament is also worried about a decision made by the UK government to change the make up of the independent monitoring authority being created under the withdrawal agreement to safeguard the rights of EU Citizens, and stressed that the government needs to ensure the authority would be operational immediately on the end of the transition period and will be truly independent.
The UK government has launched a multi-million-pound information scheme intended to educate the general public and demonstrate the ease of obtaining settled status. The Home Office had received nearly 2.6 million applications for settled status by the end of November 2019. More than 2.3 million of those cases have been completed, with 59% granted settled status and 41% granted pre-settled status, a category available to EU Citizens who have lived in the UK for less than five years. Only five applicants have so far been turned down for any form of status.
