I am confused.ro! Identity card/ passport issues Romania

[MNicoara]

Hi there

Would be really grateful for any advice!
My husband is Romanian, he will have been here for 5 years in June and has applied for settled status already a couple of months ago.
As he has been living here in the UK, his identity card ran out almost 2 years ago. He hasn't had an address to use there or a need for his identity card as he also has a Romanian passport.
His passport is running out in December of 2019 and today he said the Romanian embassy said to renew his passport, he will need an indentity card. How can he get an identity card to prove residency if he is not a resident there? Very soon, he will have settled status here also.
How can we get around this, other than the long and expensive process of him becoming a British Citizen and applying for a UK passport?
Any advice would be greatly appeciated.

[seagul]

How has he proved his 5 years of treaty rights & residency when applied settlement application.

[MNicoara]

As of yet, we did his application on the phone app. It asked for his national Insurance number, passport, scanned his chip etc. There will be history of him applying for his National Insurance number and working back in 2014 with HMRC (they have records back to 2014).
I was expecting to be asked for proof already, but as of yet, they have emailed and sent a letter saying they are doing it all and haven't asked.
He has photographs from the day after he arrived, by a famous landmark where we live. That was the 29th June 2014. I thought if we start the process off now, by the time they get round to dealing with it properly, it will probably be June and then we can send photographs of him arriving and historic messages etc from when he arrived.