Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of accepting EU group passports or identity cards to increase bookings for school trips to the UK from EU countries.

As part of the changes to the Immigration Rules in September 2021, we no longer accept national identity cards as a valid travel document from EU, EEA and Swiss visitors to the UK.

Almost a year’s notice was provided for this change to allow groups to plan ahead and obtain passports where they do not already have them before they travel.

The experience at the UK Border since the change has been positive, with EU, EEA and Swiss citizens making the switch to using their passport for travel. Using a passport also means most EU nationals making a short visit can also use e-gates where available for a quicker and easier arrival experience.

There are no plans to change our approach.

On group passports, the List of Travellers is an EU scheme and the EU announced in July 2020 the UK would no longer be part of it from 1 January 2021. The UK Government decided to continue accepting travel to the UK on the List of Travellers until 1 October 2021 to allow this change to be made at the same time as the change on the acceptance of EU, EEA and Swiss identity cards.

We continue to allow travel to the UK on collective passports for young people issued by Member States who have ratified the relevant 1961 Council of Europe treaty.