Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who raises a very important point. I have an answer of fantastic complexity here before me, but the gist of it is that at present HMRC would be forced to rely on all sorts of information that it would not be able to verify very easily in order to comply with his wishes. I am happy to discuss it more fully with him and to write to him in detail.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q15. In front of the Liaison Committee last week, the Prime Minister was clearly shocked to learn that many migrants living and working lawfully in the UK have no recourse to public funds. Without support, many have been forced to continue working in unsafe conditions or have been pushed into extreme poverty. He promised the Liaison Committee that he would do all he could to help. Scrapping the policy would be the best step, so will he update the House on his progress?

[The Prime Minister]

What I can tell the House is that everybody knows that no recourse to public funds is a long-standing condition that applies to people here with temporary immigration status, but it is a term of art; it does not mean that they are necessarily excluded from all public funds. For instance, they may be eligible for coronavirus job retention scheme funds or self-employed income support scheme funds. Indeed, if they have paid into the benefit system, they may be eligible also for certain benefits.