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Hundreds of thousands of people can’t get through to the EU settlement scheme helpline – is this ‘success’?

As new data reveals more than half of EU nationals appealing to the Home Office about issues with their status can’t get through to a caseworker, May Bulman asks whether ministers are doing enough to prevent another Windrush-style scandal

Thursday 27 January 2022 08:52 GMT
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<p>New data obtained by campaign group the3million reveals that 1,400,000 calls were made to the EU settlement scheme helpline last year, of which more than half went unanswered </p>

New data obtained by campaign group the3million reveals that 1,400,000 calls were made to the EU settlement scheme helpline last year, of which more than half went unanswered

I am delighted to have this opportunity to mark and update the House on the huge success of the EU settlement scheme,” immigration minister Kevin Foster told MPs in June 2021. He went on to boast that more than 5.6 million applications had been received and 5.2 million concluded by the scheme, and claimed that concerns about the government’s willingness to protect Europeans after Brexit had proven “totally unfounded”.

The volume of people who applied for the EU settlement scheme – set up in 2019 to grant EU nationals in the UK and their family members a new form of post-Brexit immigration status – before the deadline of 30 June 2021 was a cause for celebration, especially given there had been warnings that the scheme would fall short of getting three million applicants.

But if Mr Foster thought this meant the job was now over, and that all EU nationals in Britain now had their settled status with no problems, he was very wrong. Many are still struggling to obtain or prove their status.

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