A UK Home Office decision to grant an automatic two-year extension to the pre-settled status of 2.1 million European Union citizens living in Britain means they will no longer face losing their rights if their status expires while their settlement applications are being processed.
In a case brought earlier this year against the Home Office by the UK’s post-Brexit EU citizens’ rights watchdog the Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens’ Rights Agreements (IMA), a High Court of Justice ruling in London found it was unlawful for citizens with pre-settled status, also known as “leave to remain”, to be stripped of their rights if they had not made a further application to the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) before that status expired.
Some are not convinced it will make things much easier. Professor Catherine Barnard, senior research fellow at think-tank UK in a Changing Europe, told Brussels Signal: “This is just buying time for the government while it considers a fuller response to the High Court ruling. There are still so many uncertainties.
“It’s okay for the low-hanging fruit, for the middle classes where people are working in hospitals or organisations with HR departments but what about those with patchy work histories?
“What happens to people who have hit five years of pre-settled status but have hard-to-verify residency histories. Even if they are given a two-year extension, what happens then?” she said.
The latest Home Office decision comes as many EU nationals and their family members face the expiration of their pre-settled status later this year, five years after those EU citizens first joined the EUSS when it was launched by the UK in August 2018.
Before the latest announcement, those on pre-settled status who had not had their applications accepted were expected to apply for an extension – or risk losing their rights that allowed them to access benefits including free National Health Service care, to work or study in the UK or rent a property in England.
Following the Home Office decision on implementation of the High Court judgment, IMA chief executive Kathryn Chamberlain said: “When we brought this case, we wanted to make sure that no citizen unlawfully lost their right to reside in the UK, together with all associated rights.
“So, while we broadly welcome the commitment from the Home Office that no-one will lose their pre-settled status for failing to make a second application, we remain concerned about the lack of detail about how the plans will work in practice.
“This has made it difficult for us to offer any certainty to citizens with pre-settled status about how the judgment is going to affect them as we have not yet been able to properly assess the measures the Home Office is adopting,” she said.
Home Office officials said the department now intends to take steps to automatically convert as many eligible pre-settled status holders as possible to settled status once they are entitled to it, without them needing to make an application.
To claim settled status, which can lead to British citizenship after 12 months, an application to switch from pre-settled status under the EUSS must be made once the applicant has lived in the UK continuously for five years.
In its ruling, the High Court had said that, under the terms of the EU Withdrawal Agreement, the right of permanent residence is acquired automatically – without the need for a further application – once the necessary conditions were met.
Latest Home Office estimates suggest some 5.6 million Europeans and their family members had secured their rights in the UK through the EUSS, with around 2.1 million holding pre-settled status and a further 3.5 million enjoying settled status.
