@LAD, thanks for the detailed reply and some gentle reassurance re: getting home to Italy.
We had considered the problem of coming back to the UK. She doesn’t have settled status (she’s essentially an Italian resident having lived there her whole life, studying at an Italian Uni, and visiting the UK when she can). She’s a British citizen but without the proof yet (hence the passport application).
A member of staff at the Italian Consulate in London advised her against travelling on her Italian ID card, saying that whilst they ‘think’ it’s possible to leave on the ID card, then her Italian passport wouldn’t be stamped as having left the UK. This makes us think there is no benefit to getting an Emergency Travel Document to leave on, as the situation would be the same.
We may have to take the risk, and hope that either:
1) The British passport and existing Italian passport can be posted out to her home address in Italy (directly or via myself) and that she can then just come/go on the British passport without issue.
2) She declares the Italian passport as lost and gets a new one in Italy at a later date.
I don’t know if border control would electronically link the new and old, and see a lack of ‘exit’ on the old one and then grill her / deny her entry the next time she wants to come back.
It is surprisingly hard to know things for sure on all these matters! Not even Ryanair support seem to be able to answer whether they’d accept it for leaving the UK.
On the upside, after 1.5 hours on the phone to the passport office today and 2 separate calls, we may be getting a call back from the progress team. Whether or not it’ll happen, we shall see… fingers crossed!
@LILIBLUE, I hope you can get your passport returned!