No Recourse to Public Funds

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I only narrowly avoided serving under the chairmanship of Ms Nokes, one of my predecessors in this role, as several Members have mentioned this afternoon.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) and, of course, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) on securing this afternoon’s important debate. Everybody who has spoken has contributed with great sincerity and passion, and I have been listening carefully to everything Members have said. Where I have, occasionally, been on the phone, I have been texting officials asking various questions in follow up on points that have been raised.

I will start by laying out some of the historical context to the “no recourse to public funds” policy. It has existed since the Immigration Act 1971, and the principle that underpins it is that it would not be reasonable for people who have arrived here very recently or on a temporary basis to be able to access the full range of benefits available to somebody who is settled here or a citizen. If we look at the categories of people to whom the NRPF condition applies, it is people such as visitors, those who are here on a holiday visa, students, people who come here to study, and workers who are here for a short time or, in some cases, a longer time. There would be an inherent unfairness if, having literally just arrived, people were able to fully access public funds.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Can the Minister add to his list women whose children are born and brought up here and are UK citizens, and are going nowhere?

[Chris Philp]

I was going to come to that point. It is a very reasonable question to raise. Let me just finish my point, and I will come on to address the point that the hon. Lady has raised, entirely understandably and rightly.

It is worth mentioning that, of course, refugees are not subject to the NRPF condition. A couple of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), talked about the time it takes to make decisions. I am not sure if he was referring to asylum decisions or another kind of decision, but I make it clear that anyone claiming asylum or anyone granted asylum is not subject to the NRPF condition, and neither are people who are granted indefinite leave to remain.

[Steve McCabe]

I was talking about unresolved cases. I thought I was actually quite specific in saying it was people who did not have indefinite leave to remain. If the Minister did not hear that, I hope that has made it clearer for him.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman has made it very clear. I am grateful for that clarification. As he has just alluded to, people who have indefinite leave to remain—people who are here permanently—do not have the NRPF condition applied to them. The path to getting to ILR can take five years for many people, if they are on a relevant qualifying route. Even if they are not on a relevant qualifying route, 10 years’ continuous residency gets people ILR. The majority get it after five years.

That brings us to the question that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) raised. I was going to address that point later, but since she raised it in an intervention, I shall turn to it now. It is the question of families. Almost every case raised this afternoon has involved children. No one can listen to stories involving children experiencing hardship without feeling extremely moved, but of course the NRPF condition, as many Members have mentioned, can be lifted where the parent is on a family route. Where there are children who are British citizens, that will typically be the case—it certainly should be the case. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) gave an example where an application was made to have the condition lifted and the application was granted. In cases where there are British citizen children whose parents have the NRPF condition, people can apply and do apply to have that li-fted.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

Let me finish the point and I will give way in a moment. The success rate for those applications is very high. The most recent figures, which I think the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) has seen, show a success rate of 89% for those applications. That has increased in the last year. It was 79% and it is now 89%, and the time taken to make those decisions on average is 30 days—not quite five weeks, but 30 days.

The hon. Member for Brent North said, “Well, these are often quite pressing circumstances. What can be done to make that decision, which is successful in 89% of cases, faster?”. That is an entirely reasonable question. One of the actions I will take away from this afternoon’s session is to probe a little further on the question of speed. Someone mentioned 48 hours. Clearly, we have to make sure that people qualify for the condition to be lifted, and I would suspect 48 hours would not afford time to do that, but I will certainly see if anything can be done to expedite it, for the reasons the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

On the topic of children, the shadow Minister talked about free school meals, and I entirely sympathise with her point. I know that the Department for Education is conducting a review into the interaction of NRPF and free school meals. I hope it will report back on the result of that review as quickly as possible, because I understand entirely the hon. Lady’s point.

I am conscious of time, so perhaps I ought to say a quick word about data. I should congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham on his terrier-like tenacity on the question of data. In relation to the total number of people who are subject to the NRPF condition, we do not hold that data, as has been explained previously. There are a couple of issues. First, in relation to visa applications made out of country, the data is not recorded.

Secondly, there is obviously a continual coming and going of people—it includes people who are here on holiday visas and so on, who come and go the whole time. Some come and go via the common travel area, or via Ireland, so we do not have an exit check. That number is a moving feast. It includes people who come here on holiday for two weeks and then go. The right hon. Gentleman said that in relation to people who had made an in-country visa application, he had received a reply saying that that data was collected and held, but he had not received any further information.

[Stephen Timms]

The letter from the Home Office chief statistician dated 3 July, which is on the UK Statistics Authority website, states:

“Home Office administrative data only captures information on whether visas are subject to NRPF conditions for in-country extensions.”

I have asked how many there are, but received no answer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I was about to come to that point. I heard the right hon. Gentleman make that point in his speech. He had seen evidence saying that the data was held, but it had not been provided. That is another action for me to take away from this afternoon’s proceedings. I will go and ask that question about the data relating to in-country visa applications. According to the letter that he referred to, the data is held, so I will endeavour to ferret it out. It might sit in the portfolio of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), but I will certainly make inquiries in that part of the Home Office. If I am able to ferret out the information, I will certainly get back to the right hon. Gentleman. I will take that away as an action from this afternoon as well.

Finally, quite a few comments were made about coronavirus and our response to it. Clearly, everybody has access to the health service for coronavirus-related treatment. The shadow Minister asked whether the NRPF cohort are eligible for the payment if they have to self-isolate. I believe it is £500?

[Holly Lynch]

Yes.

[Chris Philp]

I do not know the answer to that question, but I will go away and find out because it is a very reasonable question to ask. More generally, people who are subject to NRPF are eligible for things such as the coronavirus job retention scheme, the self-employed income support scheme, and the support given to people on zero-hours contracts, based on their previous income. Those funds are not classed as public funds. Those are available to everybody, including the cohort mentioned today.

Local authority funding has been referred to a great deal. It has been denigrated as “cost shunting” and as being a small amount, but it is £4.3 billion, which, even by the standards of public spending, is a pretty significant amount of money. It covers more than just NRPF cases—I understand that—but it is none the less a very large amount of money, much of which has found its way to supporting NRPF cases. A case mentioned by one Opposition Member ended up being helped in that way. We can debate whether it is cost shunting or whether that is the best way of administering it, but local authorities often have the best knowledge about how to help people in their local areas. We might debate the nature of that safety net, but what cannot be gainsaid is that that safety net—that £4.3 billion to local authorities—does exist. It is there and it does help people. For those with children, which applies in all of the cases we have heard about this afternoon, there is a route to lifting—

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

I must finish to allow time for the right hon. Member for East Ham to wind up.

There is a clear route to having the conditions lifted for people with children, quite rightly. It can be done without a lawyer. Somebody suggested earlier that a lawyer is needed, but that is not the case. Somebody said people need to produce hundreds of pages of evidence, but they do not. They simply need to provide basic evidence of the risk of destitution, and I believe the service is now available online as well.

I hope I have explained the principles of NRPF, but also the safety nets and exceptions that have been set up. There are at least three points that I will take away from this afternoon’s proceedings, and I will get back to the three Members concerned. I hope that I have provided an adequate response to this afternoon’s queries.