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Brexit: ID scheme for EU citizens in UK 'difficult to achieve'

Demonstrators outside parliament lobby MPs to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK post-Brexit in September.
Demonstrators outside parliament lobby MPs to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK post-Brexit in September. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Government plans to give 3.4 million EU citizens in the UK a post-Brexit identity number will be difficult to achieve, a thinktank has said.

New Philanthropy Capital examined registration schemes around the world and found that historic take-up rates for large-population registrations ranged from less than 20% in the UK to 43% in the US and 77% in Spain.

The research was carried out by NPC on behalf of the Transition Advice Fund.

The only scheme that came close to achieving a 100% take-up was in India, but that was after almost £1bn was spent on an awareness and implementation programme.

“If just 5% of the estimated 3.4 million EU citizens living in the UK do not register by the deadline, this would be a population of 170,000 left without status,” NPC said. “Therefore the government should invest in information and outreach in order to make the scheme a success.

“Many successful registration schemes take several attempts (even if they were initially intended as being one-off), involve a learning process over several years as well as a large resource commitment. Here the UK has little historical experience compared to other European countries [of registering migrants].”

The Home Office will unveil details of its settled status scheme on Thursday, with tax and national insurance records to be used as evidence for applications.

It plans to launch the scheme at the end of the year and has promised the process will be simple and that the default position will be to accept applications.

However, charities and campaign groups remain concerned that many EU citizens lawfully in the country will fall through the net, including carers, stay-at-home spouses and people who work for cash, commonly in construction, cleaning and agriculture.

NPC’s researchers found success largely depended on awareness-building and the process involved.

In the UK the government revolutionised pension take-up by introducing automatic enrolment in the workplace, delivering a 90% take-up rate of those in full-time employment.

However, an attempt to give indefinite leave to remain to certain asylum-seeking families had a take-up rate of 50%.

It was “a case study of how to get the least uptake when you do not actually want to encourage it”, NPC said, describing the scheme as complex, expensive and lacking publicity.

By contrast, India achieved 99% take-up for its Aadhar programme to provide the entire population with a unique ID card to prevent benefit fraud.

The Indian government has spent $1.2bn (£900m) on the programme in the seven years since it launched in 2010, and by last year 1.13 billion people were registered.

“This was done on a huge scale – the government was enrolling a million people a day at one stage,” said NPC.

While the Indian system remains controversial, with the electronic ID number now being demanded by private sector interests including banks, the vast resource behind it would be difficult to match in the UK, where the Treasury is already fighting off Theresa May’s promise of a Brexit dividend for the NHS.

Spain achieved a 77% take-up rate in 2005 for a programme to regularise foreign workers. To achieve that it set up 742 information centres managed by NGOs and trade unions, hired an extra 1,700 staff and spent more than £3m on translators.

The Spanish government considered the three-month programme a success after five failed regularisation programmes between 1985 and 2004, which combined had the same uptake as the 2005 programme.

NPC concluded that the “intense injection” of resources and the three-month deadline was effective.

In the US, a recent scheme to register unauthorised migrants who had arrived in the country as children had a 45% take-up. NPC found differences according to region and nationality, with coordination between schools, unions, legal services and community organisations backed by “sympathetic” local government leading to increased sign-up.

The UK government is giving EU citizens until the end of the Brexit transition process to register for an ID number, but it is unclear what will happen to those who are unsuccessful or do not apply in time.

The Home Office said it had already spent £60m on the settled status programme and it had started recruiting caseworkers to increase the number of visa and immigration staff to 1,500.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We will shortly be outlining further details of how the settlement scheme agreed with the European Union in March will work, including who can apply, how they can apply and the fee.

“There will be support for the vulnerable and those without access to a computer, and we’re working with EU citizens’ representatives and embassies to ensure the system works for everyone.”

The spokesperson said that anyone with good reason for missing the 30 June 2021 deadline for registration would be given reasonable extra time to do so.