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No Recourse to Public Funds

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on securing the debate.

It seems to me that covid has brought into sharp focus the stark reality of the inhumane nature of no recourse to public funds. Not only has it exposed the suffering to which we are subjecting people and their children, but it carries with it an in-built additional health risk. It must be obvious that those with no other source of income will continue to try to work, even while they are unwell, inevitably exposing others to the virus because of their desperate need to make ends meet. That is not only hitting them, at one level, but creating another health risk.

As we have heard, the policy applies largely to those who have not been granted indefinite leave to remain, including victims of trafficking and torture, and women fleeing abusive partners. Until recently, as my right hon. Friend said, it also barred their children from receiving free school meals. This is placing an intolerable burden on local authorities. Birmingham, like many authorities, is battling with a huge increase in homelessness and buckling under the strain. As we know, local councils do not receive any specific funding from central Government to support these people. There may be some slight dispute about the total figure, but the latest data I have seen, for 2018-19, showed that 59 councils were spending £47.5 million a year on NRPF service provision—that is before coronavirus.

As we know, the High Court recently described the system as a breach of article 3, which prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) indicated, the court found it particularly problematic that a person must prove they are destitute before the conditions can be lifted; it ordered that their showing they were about to become destitute should be sufficient. I am not sure how either can be proved, to be perfectly honest, but I think most reasonable people could make that judgment quite quickly and without too much investigation.

I find myself in agreement with much of what the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) said, particularly towards the end of his remarks. At its core, this is a Home Office problem; its inability to deal with outstanding immigration cases is causing much of the difficulty. To my mind, the best way to resolve the problem would be to allow those currently subject to the restriction to claim the equivalent of universal credit and charge the cost of that to the Home Office. Ministers and officials would soon be incentivised to produce a rather more efficient immigration system—one that actually sets out to resolve cases rather than leaving people in limbo for years on end.

There cannot be a Member in the Chamber who has not got a backlog of cases of people who have been trying for years to get their situation resolved. That is the problem. We are penalising these poor folk because of the Home Office’s inability to do its job. If we were to give them access to the equivalent of universal credit and charge that to the Home Office, we would at a stroke address our article 3 failings—perhaps enabling this country to lift its head a bit higher—and tackle the root cause of the problem at the same time.

2.13 pm