UK to protect post-Brexit French school trips scheme

The UK government will not axe a post-Brexit scheme to cut red tape for French children visiting on school trips after the programme was threatened by new requirements for EU travellers entering Britain. 

The decision by the Home Office follows intense lobbying from French travel industry bodies and government officials following concerns from teachers last month that the scheme was under threat.

The scheme was introduced in December 2023 following a summit between French President Emmanuel Macron and then UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in order to arrest a sharp drop-off in visits caused by Brexit.

It allowed French school children to travel to the UK in groups using their identity cards, and their non-EU classmates to accompany them without applying for a visa, replicating the “list of travellers” programme that was open to all EU countries before Brexit.

The scheme ended what French schools had called the “Kafkaesque nightmare” of trying to get visas for children for a three-day school trip, with visas often refused for different reasons when making identical applications. 

The planned introduction of the UK’s Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme (ETA) has raised questions about the viability of the school trips deal because it requires all EU travellers to use a passport to register before travelling to Britain.

French government officials said last month that they had “expressed concern” to London over how ETA — which comes into force on April 2 2025 — would impact the scheme, which had delivered “major progress” in reinforcing Anglo-French connections. 

However, the Home Office said in a written statement to parliament on Tuesday that the school trips scheme would be able to continue for groups of five or more children when travelling with their teacher.

“French school group[s] will be temporarily exempted from the ETA requirement until a group solution is developed. This will allow EU, EEA and Swiss children to continue to use their identity cards on organised French school trips to the UK,” wrote Home Office minister Lord David Hanson.

The Home Office has not clarified the future plan for the scheme, or whether it could be expanded to other EU nationalities as Conservative ministers hinted might be possible when the scheme was originally introduced.

French travel companies welcomed the announcement, which followed warnings from the Les Entreprises du Voyage, the main trade body for travel agencies in France, that bookings for 2025 were already being effected by uncertainty over the scheme.

The introduction of the scheme had led to a 30 per cent increase in school trips to the UK, according to data from Les Entreprises du Voyage, which it said were still 60 per cent below 2019 levels when the rules were introduced in December.

Valérie Boned, president of Les Entreprises du Voyage, said the UK’s positive response to their request was “a common sense decision in the interests of students and school trips organisers on both sides of the channel”.

Edward Hisbergues, director of PG Trips, a leading school trips travel company, said he was “deeply relieved” by the decision and grateful to the government, which has repeatedly ruled out a wider “youth mobility deal” with Brussels.

“Making these trips possible for all young people is a great gesture by the British government,” he added.