Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Sherlock on 3 February (HL Deb col 1428), what assessments they have carried out to determine whether access to the benefits system acts as a pull factor for migrants.

The Home Office is the department responsible for assessing migration trends – including pull factors for migration. The Home Office report ‘Asylum seeker decision-making in journeys to the United Kingdom (2022)’ explores the decision-making process for asylum seekers choosing to come to the UK.

Most migrants with temporary visas cannot access the benefit system. Access to public funds and benefits is usually at the point of settlement, which for most people will be after they have lived in the UK legally for five years, and the Home Office Earned Settlement policy consultation is looking at increasing this to ten years.

The Home Office are also consulting on changing the default position to maintain No Recourse to Public Funds at settlement and lifting this only at the point of British citizenship, in addition to increasing times for path to settlement from five to ten years.