No Recourse to Public Funds

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I must just warn Members that because of the limited time for this debate, I will expect them to speak for about six minutes.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I will put a six-minute time limit on speeches.

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[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) for setting out such a great foundation on which to have this conversation. He brought such a lot of information to the table about the number of people, as far as we can tell, who are subject to no recourse to public funds and some of the issues they face.

I do an awful lot of work with the No Recourse North East Partnership in the north-east of Scotland, which was set up because all of us who deal with casework and people with problems were seeing a massive increase in the number of those coming to us with no recourse to public funds. Unlike Glasgow, which has been a dispersal authority for a period, we did not have the legal or charitable support in place in our city to provide people with that level of legal immigration advice. We saw a massive increase in numbers in the last few years, and that is why the group began.

During that time, we have struggled so hard to find out how many individuals are subject to no recourse to public funds, so that we can make the case for there being more specialised support for people in our city. In Aberdeen we have the highest percentage of non-UK born citizens outside London. We have a significant amount of immigration in our city, and that is a good thing to be celebrated, but it brings with it the problem we are seeing of an increase in the level of destitution as a result of people having no recourse to public funds.

The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) mentioned the consistency in applying guidance under section 17 of the Children Act. I can tell him that it is not being applied consistently across councils. That is partly because the guidance from Government is not as good as it could be in directing local authorities as to what they can and cannot do and is leaving it up to them. If local authorities have legal departments that are particularly scared of litigation, for example, they might be less keen to support people. If individuals have “no recourse to public funds” stamped on their immigration documents, they might be less keen to seek support because they are terrified that it might impact their future immigration status. They are terrified that they might not eventually be able to apply for leave to remain if they claim something. That guidance is not as consistent as it could be.

The right hon. Member for East Ham mentioned domestic abuse. I tabled a ten-minute rule Bill a number of years ago about extending the destitution domestic violence concession. There is still a gap. We still see local women’s organisations up and down these islands struggling because they cannot apply for housing benefit for people who have no recourse to public funds unless they get the destitution domestic violence concession, which is not applicable across the board and is not a guarantee. We cannot see women’s aid organisations go under, but it means that individuals are in a situation where they might have to stay in abusive relationships or go back to abusive partners simply in order to feed their children. We should not be doing this. As has been made clear, in so many of these cases, these are children who were born here and will live here their entire lives, and they are being directly discriminated against by these policies just because of where their parents were born—not because of anything to do with the way they have lived their lives.

What are the other options for people who have no recourse for public funds? We have heard various arguments from Ministers in the past. They have said, “Well, people can just go back to the country they have come from.” Some people with no recourse to public funds are stateless. How can someone who is stateless go back to the country they came from? The country might not even exist anymore. Ministers have suggested, “That person could just go back to Nigeria,” but the person has never been to Nigeria in their entire life. We are asking them to go back to a country in which they have no home and no support and that their family has shunned them from. They are living here and contributing to our economy.

Imagine if everybody with no recourse to public funds decided to go off to another country—we would have so few people working in the caring professions, on the frontline of our NHS and as hospital porters, in those jobs that we desperately need people to do. If the Government are so desperate to crack down on illegal migration, they need to make the legal migration routes slightly more pleasant at least, because at the moment they are deeply discriminatory.

We are seeing children being put into hunger and poverty as a result of this—children who are at no fault and are entirely innocent. If it were up to me, I would not have “no recourse to public funds” as a status at all. If we are looking for an interim measure, the measures on child benefit that have been put forward by the Work and Pensions Committee are incredibly positive. The Government also need to give serious consideration to the rules around housing benefit, particularly in cases that involve domestic abuse, because we cannot have women’s aid organisations struggling with this issue in a way that means they cannot support women, resulting in women having to stay in abusive relationships. We cannot see that happen.

Lastly, on the point about the 30 months payment that was mentioned by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), what are people getting for the money that they are putting in? They are certainly not getting a good service. I am aware that the Minister is doing his best to improve it, but the Home Office service is not great. People are being asked to pay that money for the pleasure of staying in a country where they cannot even afford to feed their children because of the lack of support. It is absolutely shameful, and it really needs to improve.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) for bringing this debate before the House, and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

No recourse to public funds is a critical issue in my constituency, as it is to many of the Members who have spoken this afternoon. To give some of the history, it has been a visa condition since 1980. Its origin more recently is in Labour’s Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, and to me, it feels like it is steeped in myths about people coming over here to claim our benefits. Given the paucity of such benefits and the lack of knowledge people moving to the UK have of the inner workings of the benefits system, that has always seemed particularly unlikely to me. What we have instead is an expensive immigration system—as hon. Members have pointed out—and people caught in a double whammy where they pay a huge amount of money to be here, they are not a burden to the taxpayer, and they get very little back out of the system. They are, in fact, paying in more than most of us.

What this status has caused is poverty, destitution and an increasing strain on individuals and families, including those children who have been born here. There is also an increasing strain on charities and public services. Praxis has documented that two thirds of people with no recourse to public funds are struggling to feed their children. Some 59% are forced into debt to pay for essentials, and 50% are turning to food banks and charities for support, all at a time when the cost of living is soaring. The right hon. Member for East Ham correctly pointed out that the Prime Minister did not know about no recourse to public funds, and only on Tuesday this week, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury still did not know what no recourse to public funds meant when I asked him in this House. I said, “What happens to people who cannot afford to pay for their heating?” and he said, “They should just claim through the system.” They cannot—that is the very nature of no recourse to public funds. Ministers should really catch themselves up on the impact that their policies are having.

Another part of the problem is that we do not know how many people are affected by this status, both as a whole and within our individual constituencies. There are estimated figures of around 1.6 million people, but if we do not know how many of the people in our constituencies have this status, we will not know what support they might need and how to respond to those needs. Quite often, as the hon. Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch and for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) mentioned, it falls to charities and local government to pick up the pieces when everything else breaks down. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West correctly identified that this is causing huge food insecurity. I have spoken to Audrey at the Glasgow South East food bank in my constituency, which is seeing increasing numbers of people on no recourse to public funds coming forward and looking for help.

As a constituency MP, my heart sinks when I see somebody’s biometric residence permit stamped with “no public funds” in the back, because I know that that will limit my ability to help and support them, and there are people who desperately need that support. I have a constituent who has a disability and no recourse to public funds, so he could not get a disabled persons railcard because that is the gateway to getting that support. I had another gentleman who was medically unfit to work and on no recourse to public funds—what is he supposed to do in those circumstances? The Ferret reported recently on a family of five left homeless because of no recourse to public funds who were sleeping in a borrowed car in the streets of Glasgow. That is inhumane in our society.

Also, problems arise that people could not have anticipated or expected. I recently had a case where international students were being housed inappropriately in accommodation that was found to be unsafe, and all of a sudden, 40 families were put out with nowhere to live. The local authority stepped in and was able to help, but only on a limited basis, because those families could not claim benefits, housing support or anything else because of no recourse to public funds. The safety net has massive holes in it when it comes to these groups of people. The Minister closes his eyes to these real plights and circumstances that are caused by no recourse to public funds. When these crises happen and when there are those changes in circumstances, people are unable to get the support that they need.

The Scottish Government have done what they can. They have had the “Ending destitution together” strategy along with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. They are trying their best to try to plug these gaps and fill these holes, but without an understanding of the numbers involved or of how to reach those people—as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North mentioned, they may have good reasons for not wanting to identify themselves—it makes it difficult to provide the support that is required. We may have two households next door to each other in identical circumstances, working the same jobs with children the same age, but one household is not entitled to support, because they have no recourse to public funds status. That seems fundamentally unfair.

The Scottish Government are determined to build a country where everyone is treated with fairness and respect. No recourse to public funds prevents Scotland from doing so. I look forward to an independent Scotland where we can build a more equal and fair society and we can be rid of the Home Office and its cruel hostile environment once and for all.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.