No Recourse to Public Funds

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of no recourse to public funds.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for enabling the debate to take place, and I thank the Members on both sides of the House who supported the application. The Register of Members’ Financial Interests records my support from the Refugee, Asylum and Migrant Policy project. I also thank Praxis, Citizens UK, and the Refugee & Migrant Forum of Essex and London for helping me to prepare for the debate.

During the pandemic, hard-working, law-abiding families, working legally in the UK but subject to no recourse to public funds, were especially hard hit. Their wages stopped because their jobs stopped, and NRPF also prevented them from claiming benefits. They had to turn to food banks, as a huge number did in my constituency, where Bonny Downs Community Association, Newham Community Project and others did an amazing job. Before the pandemic, if people with no recourse to public funds lost their job they just got another one, but the pandemic made that impossible.

The complete absence of help came as a shock to, for one, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). At the Liaison Committee in May 2020, two months into lockdown, I told him about a hard-working, law-abiding family in my constituency, including two British-born children, who were destitute because the father had lost his income. The transcript of the Committee meeting records the following:

“Hang on, Stephen. Why aren’t they eligible for universal credit, employment and support allowance or any of the other benefits”.

I said that it was because of no recourse to public funds. They had been here for years, but for 10 years, NRPF meant no help at all. The Prime Minister said:

“I am going to have to come back to you on that, Stephen. Clearly people who have worked hard for this country, who live and work here, should have support of one kind or another…I will find out how many there are in that position and we will see what we can do to help. ”

He was right to say that

“people who have worked hard for this country, who live and work here, should have support of one kind or another”.

Unfortunately, however, the Prime Minister’s opinion was not his Government’s policy. He did not find out how many were in that position, because the Home Office does not know.

No recourse to public funds is a condition imposed on people with temporary visas. The current version dates from 2012, and bars access to social security benefits. According to the House of Commons Library, 1.6 million people have leave to remain with no recourse to public funds. The Migration Observatory at Oxford University estimates that the total includes 225,000 children. Typically, families are on the so-called 10-year track to indefinite leave, like the family that I mentioned to the Prime Minister. That family were in the UK on student visas for several years, but after their two children were born, they started on the 10-year track. They renew their leave every two and a half years, paying at least £2,608 per adult in visa fees each time plus additional fees for their children. No recourse to public funds applies throughout. The Home Office has been taking 11 months, on average, to process these re-applications, so for months people cannot prove their status. Thousands who are still permitted to work while awaiting the determination have wrongly lost their jobs as a result. After 10 years, they can apply for indefinite leave and, when they secure that, NRPF no longer applies.

The Home Office does not know how many people in the UK have no recourse to public funds. That, I think, is understandable. Once people are given leave to remain, the Home Office does not know who departs. Parliamentary questions have shown, however, that the Home Office cannot even tell us how many people it gave leave to remain last year with the NRPF condition attached, apparently because of the inadequacy of its computer systems. Last November, I asked in written question 93420 when the new Atlas case working system would tell us the number of applicants who have no recourse to public funds attached to their leave to remain. The answer came back that,

“remaining areas will complete their transition to Atlas in 2023, after which time it will be possible to explore what further information can be produced using the new system.”

I wonder whether the Minister can update us when he winds up. By when does he now think the Home Office will at least know how many people it imposes NRPF on each year?

Citizens Advice estimates that 329,000 parents have had NRPF, many for 10 years, which is most of somebody’s childhood, whereas 40% have been in the UK for more than five years and 10%, like the family I told the then Prime Minister about, have been here for more than a decade. Families with no recourse to public funds can make a change of circumstances application for exemption from NRPF if they are destitute or heading for destitution. Last year, 3,200 families applied and 60% were successful. I welcome regular publication of the data about that. Recent court decisions have required immigration rule changes to allow disability and child welfare to be considered, but those decisions do not yet seem to have been reflected in change of circumstances decisions. A lot of families do not know about the change in circumstances process.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend mentions recent court cases. It was particularly disgraceful that the Green-led administration in Brighton refused to support people with no recourse to public funds during the covid in-period. Shelter took the council to court—where the council spent huge amounts of public money to defend its actions—and won. Is it not the case that housing is a public health issue and, just like access to healthcare, which is excluded from no recourse to public funds, access to basic housing facilities should not require an exemption but should automatically be allowed?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I believe that his local council is no longer Green party controlled. He is absolutely right.

The change of circumstances process is cumbersome and difficult. With specialist help from an organisation such as the Unity Project or Praxis, people are likely to succeed, but lots of families do not know those organisations and cannot access the help. If someone is in Brighton, they cannot access a support organisation in Islington. It is very troubling that many families are missing out because applying is so hard.

The Select Committee on Work and Pensions unanimously recommended two specific changes. The first was that no family with children should have the condition for longer than five years, recognising that for many it is 10 years at the moment. The second was that where the children are British citizens, as is often the case, child benefit should be paid in relation to those children even when the parents have no recourse to public funds. When families have been here for five years, or when children are already British citizens, they are here for good. We should be supporting children to fulfil their potential future contribution to our society. We will all lose out by denying them that support. It makes no sense to impose destitution on the families of children who will be in Britain for the rest of their life. The Government rejected those modest cross-party recommendations, and I hope the Minister will think again. The current policy is contrary to the national interest.

The pandemic highlighted the perilous situation of people with no recourse to public funds, and the latest Trussell Trust data show that food bank demand is sharply up again. In the cost of living crisis, families with no recourse to public funds are being clobbered once more, which is the trigger for this debate. Low-income families with no recourse to public funds are ineligible for cost of living support because they are ineligible for the benefits that passport people to that support. They are not eligible for the £900 cost of living payment this year or the £600 cost of living payment last year, for the £300 pensioner payment, for the £150 disability payment or for the warm home discount.

Battling through the current crisis without the support everyone else receives is extraordinarily hard. The Select Committee took evidence from parents with no recourse to public funds, and a Conservative colleague on the Committee rightly described their evidence as “harrowing.” Having no recourse to public funds leaves families in desperate situations.

Praxis, which supports families in my constituency, calculates that a two-parent, two-child family with both parents working and earning the national living wage are entitled to just over £11,000 of support this financial year, including cost of living support, universal credit and child benefit. If the same family had no recourse to public funds, they would be entitled to £195—the saving from the energy price guarantee. No assessment has been made of the impact on children in low-income families with no recourse to public funds of the non-availability of the support being provided to other families in identical situations, but not much imagination is needed to work that out.

The household support fund is paid out through local authorities. When it was introduced, councils did not know whether they were allowed to support people with no recourse to public funds. The Government advice was that councils should take their own legal advice on whether or not they are allowed to use the household support fund for that purpose. At last, paragraph 45 of the Government guidance on the household support fund states that, from 1 April 2023:

“Authorities can provide a basic safety net support to an individual, regardless of their immigration status, if there is a genuine care need that does not arise solely from destitution, for example if…they have serious health problems; there is a risk to a child’s wellbeing… Authorities must use their judgement to decide what legal powers and funding can be used to support individuals who are ineligible for public funds”.

The Government guidance remains somewhat unclear, but the first point is welcome and overdue.

On the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), Crisis reports that 6% of the people it supported last year had NRPF. St Mungo’s points out that rising food, energy and rent costs are increasing rough sleeping. More NRPF families will be on the street, and others will be stuck in insecure, overcrowded housing with long-term damaging impacts on children who will be here forever.

One parent told the Select Committee:

“My 5-year-old kept asking, ‘Mum, why are other children entitled and I am not?’ I struggled to answer.”

We should not be doing that to children who will spend their life in this country.

Maryam, a 23-year-old domestic violence survivor with two daughters, was referred to the Kurdish and Middle Eastern Women’s Organisation in north London by children’s social services. She had no recourse to public funds, so she was financially dependent on her husband. She had no choice but to stay in an abusive relationship for four years, as NRPF meant she had no way out.

Praxis has surveyed families with no recourse to public funds over the past month: two thirds are struggling to afford food; 59% have been forced into debt to pay for essentials, about three times the proportion of the population as a whole; and half are relying on charities and food banks for basic needs, compared with 3% of the population as a whole.

The Chancellor announced welcome improvements in the Budget, as recommended by the Select Committee, to support people who are claiming universal credit with their childcare costs. That support is not available to working families with no recourse to public funds who are faced with unaffordable childcare, like everybody else. We cannot justify having this large group in the labour market at such a massive disadvantage compared with everyone else. I welcome the extension of care for disadvantaged two-year-olds to NRPF families. Access for those families to free school meals is now permanent as well, which I am pleased about.

Five years is long enough for a family to contribute into our welfare state before receiving from it. After half a decade, a family with British-born children is here for good. Will the Minister commit to considering extending child benefit to all British children, irrespective of their parents’ status, and allowing parents access to public funds after five years? Those are not radical changes. They are affordable, sensible reforms that will be advocated in an op-ed in The Times tomorrow that is co-authored by me and the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). They were proposed unanimously by a Select Committee with a Conservative majority and they would support thousands of families during the biggest fall in living standards on record.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to everyone who has supported the debate and contributed to it, including those who have delayed their return to Scotland to do so. I am also grateful for the tone of the Minister’s response. I welcome the point that he made at the end about giving us information about when, in the next few months, the data will be available.

Let me underline the two key recommendations from the Work and Pensions Committee, reflecting the reality that children in families who have been here for five years and children who are already British citizens are here for good. First, families with children should automatically be exempted from NRPF after, at most, five years. Secondly, where the children are British citizens, child benefit should be payable, notwithstanding their parents having no recourse to public funds. It cannot be right for families in otherwise identical circumstances doing the same jobs to be £11,000 a year worse off even after they have been here for years because of the impact of the NRPF condition. It is, as others have said, a straightforward question of fairness. I am encouraged by the tone of what the Minister said and I hope that we will see some significant changes in this area in the coming months. It would be in everybody’s interests and in the national interest for that to happen.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of no recourse to public funds.