Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that EU nationals living in the UK and working in health and social care will have secured their EU settled status by the 1 July 2021.

As of 30 April 2021, 5.4 million applications had been received to the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS), and 4.9 million grants of status have been made, delivering on the government’s promise to secure the rights of millions of Europeans in UK law for years to come.

A comprehensive range of communications activity has been delivered to date to increase awareness of the EUSS across sectors and audience demographics including EEA and Swiss national key workers and those working in the health and social care sectors.

Communications activity includes extensive engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, and, since 2019, nearly £8million spent on targeted UK advertising on social media, website banners, catch up TV and radio, to ensure EEA and Swiss citizens are aware of the scheme and supported to apply. The latest £1.95million burst launched in May and will run to the end of June.

The Home Office has provided up to £22million in grant funding to a current network of 72 organisations providing bespoke support to vulnerable and hard to reach EU citizens and their family members eligible to apply to EUSS.

Workers in the social care sector were given early access under the pilot phases of the scheme. Communications to reach eligible health & social care workers via their employer have been ongoing since the scheme’s launch with hundreds of engagement events delivered alongside the provision of an employer toolkit, equipping organisations with the information required to support their staff.

This has included a bespoke event for NHS employers, and with a number regional strategic migration and enterprise partnerships. NHS employers, Scottish Social services and Wales Social care also sit on EUSS advisory groups. We have recently worked with DHSC to develop an internal update for NHS staff, and with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to include an update on EUSS in their bulletin to care sector employers.

We continue to work closely with the Department for Health and Social Care, and Local Authorities to provide support and materials to eligible individuals in the sector.