Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the potential effect of European ID cards not being accepted for entry into the UK on the number of school groups that will visit the UK as a result of children who are (a) refugees and (b) asylum seekers not having passports.

The Government’s plans to phase out the use of most EU, other EEA and Swiss national identity cards as a valid travel document for entry to the UK from 1 October 2021 will have no impact on refugee and asylum seeker children seeking to visit the UK as part of a school group as they do not hold such documents.

The Government has decided to end the List of Travellers scheme (which allows a non-EEA pupil legally resident in an EU Member State to visit or transit another EU Member State without a passport and/or visa-free as part of an organised school group) on 1 October.

This means all pupils based in the EU, EEA and Switzerland, no matter their nationality, will need a passport or other travel document issued under the refugee conventions - and visa if required - to visit the UK on an organised school trip with effect from the same date.

The change brings their treatment in line with asylum seeking and refugee children who reside in other parts of the world.