Praxis welcomes temporary suspension of harmful policy that punishes migrants seeking support
Praxis welcomes the Government’s decision to temporarily suspend a harmful policy that effectively punishes migrants for needing help in a crisis. We urge the Government to make this change permanent.
Many migrants are routinely denied access to a safety net by the Government’s No Recourse to Public Funds policy. Some can get support if they find themselves in crisis, but the price of such support is often prohibitively high: the length of time a person has to wait before being able to stay permanently in the UK is effectively doubled from five to ten years.
This means having to pay thousands of pounds more in visa fees, which can be extremely difficult for people already facing crisis. It also means living in a prolonged state of limbo, which makes it harder to find stable housing and secure employment. Such uncertainty can have very harmful mental health consequences, especially for children.
On 10 February 2022, following a number of legal challenges, Home Office minister Kevin Foster confirmed that the government has temporarily suspended this policy whilst it is being reviewed.
Daniel Ashwell, Advice Services Manager at Praxis commented:
“The threat of being moved onto a 10-year route to settlement discourages people living in very difficult circumstances from accessing much-needed support.
The suspension of this policy is a step in the right direction. But the Home Office needs to go further, faster, if more people are to avoid having to choose between staving off immediate poverty, or paying out thousands more in Home Office fees and living with significant uncertainty for a decade.”
Praxis has worked with a number of clients that have been forced to make just such a choice.
Mr E lost his job, and therefore income, due to the pandemic. This left him and his wife in significant rent arrears, and at risk of homelessness. The threat of being moved on to the 10-year route, with the years of precarity and significant additional cost this would result in, meant that Mr E felt unable to ask for government support. This left the couple in an extremely difficult position, facing significant stress and struggling to meet their basic needs.
In order for this temporary policy change to benefit as many people as possible, Praxis urges the Home Office to:
Urgently update published guidance and relevant online forms to reflect the temporary change, ensuring that potential applicants are aware of and can benefit from this change;
Make this change permanent at the earliest possible opportunity.