Dear Axel

EU Settlement Scheme application numbers

Thank you for your email raising concerns over a tweet by the Home Secretary on EU Settlement Scheme application numbers.

We have considered the tweet and agree that it should have referred to number of applications, not number of people. We have contacted the Home Secretary’s Private Office in this regard.

We previously issued a statement recognising the limitation of only providing statistics on the number of applications. We are continuing to engage with Home Office as they work to make improvements. We note that within the latest quarterly statistics release, in the ‘About the data’ section, the estimate of the overall proportion of repeat applications has been updated, with plans for more detailed information to be provided in the May quarterly release. The updated estimate suggests that repeat applications currently represent fewer than 5% of applications received.

Yours sincerely

 

Ed Humpherson

Director General for Regulation