No Recourse to Public Funds

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Chair for this important debate, Mr Paisley.

I start, as so many others have done, by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, on not just securing this important debate and making a powerful opening contribution, but his leadership on no recourse to public funds throughout the coronavirus crisis. As he made clear, his Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, on a cross-party basis, unanimously called for the suspension of the “no recourse to public funds” restrictions for the duration of the pandemic. His questioning of the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee gave us what we later learned to be false hope that the Prime Minister himself was in agreement that they should be lifted.

My right hon. Friend spoke of his extensive efforts—as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee—and the difficulty of ascertaining exactly the information that we need about just how many people are affected by having no recourse to public funds. The latest figures produced by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, which others used during the debate, estimate that by the end of 2019, at least 175,000 children under the age of 18 in families were expected to have no recourse to public funds, and more than 1.4 million adults.

The Labour party has consistently asked the Government to lift NRPF as a condition on a person’s migration status to ensure that no one is left behind in the public health effort against the coronavirus. Writing to the Government on 21 April, I asked them to lift the “no recourse to public funds” condition for the duration of the pandemic, stressing that thousands of people could face impossible choices between staying safe and securing an income for themselves and their families. My hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) spoke powerfully about how the length of time it takes to determine a person’s immigration status is at the heart of this debate.

The Minister will say that those with no recourse to public funds were eligible for furlough but, as we all know, not all types of work or employment conditions were eligible for the furlough scheme, which comes to an end on 31 October. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) spoke about those he represents—it is the same in my constituency—who are on zero-hours contracts and were not eligible for that support as a result.

Labour has pressed this issue throughout the passage of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, both in Committee and on Report. The tight framing of the law changes in that Bill did not allow us to table amendments that would have lifted NRPF with immediate effect, but we did make the case again for why lifting the condition for the duration of the pandemic would be the appropriate and responsible thing to do in the circumstances. The Minister might remember that we pushed that to a vote on Report, as we felt so strongly about it.

As others have commented, it has been frustrating that the Home Office has dug in on the issue. Other Departments have simply circumvented Home Office obstinance. On 26 March, Ministers from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote to all councils asking them to

“utilise alternative powers and funding to assist those with no recourse to public funds who require shelter and other forms of support due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

It seems that the Government have understood in principle that NRPF is counterproductive during the pandemic.

[Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the cost shunting. The principle was recognised, as she said, and yet the cost was shunted to local government, with a very small pot of money to cover loads of issues in a local area. She is right to raise that issue.

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[Holly Lynch]

My hon. Friend makes a similar point to the one made by the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) in his detailed and articulate speech. The point about cost shunting is exactly right. We have asked local councils to use “alternative powers” to do something, but they are essentially being asked to fudge it.

A lack of clarity from the Home Office means that, in practice, people now face a postcode lottery, at the discretion of their local authority, in the absence of a clear steer from the Home Office. The Local Government Association has called for NRPF to be suspended on behalf of councils, giving them the best chance of delivering on their responsibilities to protect those vulnerable people. As we are sadly now well into a second wave of infections, I urge the Government to once again consider lifting NRPF. If the Minister cannot make that commitment this afternoon, I ask him to seriously reflect on some mitigations for this cohort of people.

As the Minister knows, people are now required by law to self-isolate if they are contacted by NHS Test and Trace, and they will be offered a test and trace support payment of £500 if they are on lower incomes, cannot work from home or have lost income as a result. As the Government guidance states, just under 4 million people who are in receipt of benefits in England will be eligible for this payment. It is not clear if those with no recourse to public funds will be eligible for that payment, but I suspect, in some cases, they would be those people most in need of it. I hope the Minister will clarify the situation and confirm that they will be eligible for that payment, should it be necessary.

As we have discussed, it is possible for individuals and families to apply for NRPF conditions to be lifted if their circumstances change and they face destitution. That can be a complicated and lengthy process, with families fearing that their application will be unsuccessful unless they turn to paid immigration advice. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) shared powerful stories from his constituency about the barriers to having those restrictions lifted.

In the first quarter of 2020, 843 applications were made to the Home Office but in the second quarter, 5,565 were made. The Government’s own figures show that thousands of people’s circumstances have changed and that they are facing destitution. I hope the Minister will give us a clearer answer to the question of how many people have no recourse to public funds. If he does, can he give an indication of what percentage of that group these applicants represent?

The latest data published by the Home Office covers quarters 1 and 2 of this year. Can the Minister give us an early indication of what the data says for the third quarter of the year, in terms of both the numbers who are applying to have their condition lifted and the time taken to process the applications? In the latest publication, there are early signs that the time taken to arrive at a decision is starting to slide, so I hope he will give us an indication of the average time and the longest time taken to determine those applications. Others this afternoon have talked about everything from five weeks to four months.

We know that children can be denied access to public funds because of their parents’ immigration status. However, an audit of families with NRPF undertaken between 2015 and 2018 found that 68% had a child or multiple children born here in the UK. These children have only ever known the UK, but they are not protected by the safeguards we put in place to ensure children do not face the types of poverty we are seeing.

The Child Poverty Action Group published a report last April that predates the pressures of covid-19, but it has shone a harrowing light on what life is like for low-income families when there is just no safety net due to NRPF. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham told us about the eight-year-old boy who was sleeping rough due to having no recourse to public funds. The study also found that some children, who came from the most severely deprived families with NRPF simply did not eat at all during the school day. One child interviewed as part of the study said:

“Sometimes you don’t have enough energy, you cannot cope in the classroom so you have to like try and rest a bit. You just put your head on the table and you end up falling asleep in the classroom”.

Children in families with NRPF are not routinely entitled to free school meals. While the Department for Education has extended eligibility for free school meals temporarily to include some groups with NRPF, when it is compounded with the existing pressures on those families brought about by the virus, the consequences of not extending the safety net to those children is surely not something we are prepared to tolerate.

It is worth reminding ourselves, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) did, that those with NRPF pay the same taxes as every other in-work person in the UK—income tax, national insurance and council tax—in addition to ongoing immigration charges and the immigration health surcharge. Like everybody who has spoken in the debate, I have some brilliant organisations, such as St Augustine’s Centre in Halifax, WomenCentre and Halifax Opportunities Trust, which dedicate so much time to working with people in desperate positions due to having no recourse to public funds. I wish to put on the record how grateful I am for their service.

I appreciate that it was the Minister’s colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), who led on the passing of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill. In Committee, our amendment asked the Government to produce an analysis of the impact of no recourse to public funds, with a particular focus on those with children, those with pre-settled status and victims of domestic abuse. Further to the points made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, it would be enormously beneficial to everybody if we had that analysis. It would allow us to shape better policy and give us the information we need to ensure we are not leaving anyone behind in our efforts to protect people over the course of this crisis and beyond.

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[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—