Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the annual saving to the public purse of the no recourse to public funds policy.

The NRPF condition applies to most temporary migrants in the UK who are here lawfully, such as those on work and study visas, and to migrants in the UK unlawfully. The Home Office does not hold data on the total population present in the UK who are subject to NRPF and the Home Office’s Chief Statistician wrote to the Office for Statistics Regulation last July to explain the reasons for this in more detail. His letter can be found at:

https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/response-from-daniel-shaw-to-ed-humpherson-parliamentary-question-response/.

It is not feasible for the Home Office to collect data on whether a migrant with the NRPF condition would have applied for public funds should the condition not have been applied to them; it is therefore not possible to reliably estimate the annual saving to the public purse of the policy as a whole. Savings to the public purse are broadly achieved by only facilitating access to public funds for those with indefinite leave to remain (i.e. settled or permanent residence), refugees and protected persons, and those granted discretionary leave.