Problems of EU Roma Citizens with the EU Settlement Programme: Will This Teach the New Government?

Owen Parker discusses the problems that marginalised Roma EU citizens continue to face under the EU Settlement Scheme and considers the wider implications for the new government’s policy towards migrants living in the UK.

It is now more than three years since the formal deadline for applications under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS), which grants residence rights to EU and EEA citizens who were living in the EU before the end of 2020. However, many EU citizens living in the UK still struggle to access and enjoy their status without support.

Our latest research, conducted in partnership with UK charity Roma Support Group, focuses on the particular challenges faced by historically marginalised ethnic minorities, the Roma from central and eastern Europe, who make up an estimated 5-10% of the estimated 6 million EU citizens in the UK.

The status of many Roma EU citizens in the UK remained far from ‘stabilised’ in 2024. 95% of the 36 community and local authority Roma support workers we surveyed continued to support Roma people in relation to some aspect of the EUSS. Almost all of these workers continued to encounter cases of Roma people without any status; 90% were regularly supporting people to join family members to obtain status; 80% were helping people to obtain status for their children; and 80% were supporting people to move from the more precarious status of pre-settled to settled status.

Of the 50+ Roma people surveyed (also in 2024), 39% were still in pre-settled status, not settled status, which, for example, made it much more difficult for them to access benefits, particularly Universal Credit. While these Roma will benefit from the Government’s recent commitment to automatically extend their pre-settled status for five years, there is a very real risk that their status could be restricted in the future if they fail to respond and/or cope with future calls from the Government to upgrade their status.

Interviews with EUSS advisors revealed numerous cases of Roma joining family members – very often young women joining new partners with EUSS status – who are unlikely to qualify for the status and are unlikely to meet the strict income rules that apply to alternative family migration routes. Community workers noted that these women often did not seek medical and maternity support for fear of incurring medical costs.

These concerns were not unfounded. We heard of a number of cases where individuals were charged for secondary NHS care, including cases where families were charged for the treatment of children who had inadvertently neglected to apply for status for them. Interestingly, even if these children were granted status, they would still be charged if the treatment was received when they did not have status or a qualifying claim in progress.

An increasing number of Roma cases in 2023 and 2024 were referred from community organisations to senior legal advisers. This was partly a consequence of the stricter conditions that were imposed on late applications from August 2023. The new approach meant that a perceived lack of knowledge of the scheme – still relatively common among Roma in 2024 – could no longer be considered as an acceptable reason for a late (after June 2021) application.

Senior legal advice was also often sought when settled status claimants were having difficulty proving continuity of residence in the UK. This was particularly difficult for many Roma people because they often live with extended family, meaning that tenancies and bills are not in their name, and they are often employed in the informal cash economy, so have an irregular recorded employment history.

Even where some form of status has been acquired, Roma EU citizens have struggled to use it in their daily lives. EU citizens do not receive a physical ID card, but must go through an online process to use and prove their status. Others have reported frequent glitches in the system. But even when it works in a technical sense, the system does not work well for marginalised and vulnerable EU citizens, including many Roma, who often struggle to generate a ‘shared code’ on their own to prove their status to an employer or potential landlord.

Interestingly, 50% of Roma surveyed said they had limited knowledge of how to navigate the online-only process to prove status. Interviews with counsellors revealed that many members of the community often change phone numbers to access cheaper contracts and often do not use or access email accounts. However, these are personal details required to log into the system, meaning that many unsupported Roma are effectively denied access to rights – to work, rent etc. – associated with their status.

The problems that Roma continue to face in relation to the EUSS are certainly not unique to this population. Other overlapping groups of EU citizens will continue to face similar difficulties in accessing, upskilling and enjoying their status, including, disproportionately, other EU citizens from ethnic minorities (around a fifth of EU passport holders in the UK are from ethnic minorities), older people, those dependent on partner status (mainly women) and homeless people.

The recently departed Conservative government operated on the assumption that the most vulnerable EU citizens no longer needed dedicated support to gain or upgrade their EUSS status. Home Office funding for “grant-funded organisations” working to support such people was due to end in spring 2025. At the same time, a consultation was underway on proposals that would effectively make it harder for organisations to offer free immigration legal advice. The previous government also seemed to see the “digital-only” element of the EUSS as a success story to be emulated. In spring 2024, it began rolling out a similar proof-of-status process (known as “e-visas”) for millions of non-EU visa holders in the UK, arguing that “e-visas are tried and tested, and millions of customers already use them on a range of routes, including through the EU Settlement Scheme”.

Our findings paint a different picture, pointing to the need for a change of direction from the new Labour government. Without a physical or easily accessible digital form of ID, many migrant residents – whether EU or non-EU – will struggle daily to access and exercise their rights. And without ongoing and adequately funded immigration support for the many thousands of people whose status is far from settled, the spectre of a future Windrush scandal will loom large.

Author: Dr Owen Parker, Senior Lecturer, University of Sheffield.