NRPF, child poverty and health outcomes.

By David Stark

Twelve months into our project, this feels like a timely moment to take stock of what’s been achieved so far, and what still needs to be done, in a social policy landscape where discourse around immigration has taken on an ever-more heated character: anti-migrant demonstrations and expressions of divisive nationalism have become commonplace while, as we have written elsewhere, there is a growing determination to drive policy in an ever more punitive and ‘hostile’ direction, irrespective of the demonstrable harm to real human lives caused by this exclusionary approach.

Our research to date has taught us that across England, children denied recourse to public funds (NRPF) are rendered effectively administratively invisible within social policy formation. While accommodation and financial support are, in theory,  available to families deemed to be ‘in need’ under section 17 of the 1989 Children Act, provision is patchy and sporadic, with families routinely left in deep poverty, with financial payments frequently provided, if at all, at levels below even Home Office Asylum Support ‘subsistence’ rates.

Although caselaw has established that local authorities should recognise the distinction between families with a recognised legal right to remain in the UK, including those with dependent British citizen children, and those who do not, tailoring the provision of support  to ensure that children in families enjoying a recognised right to reside are not disadvantaged in relation to their peers, evidence procured from Freedom of Information requests suggests that the vast majority  of local authorities are not in fact doing so.

Perhaps even more strikingly, more than a quarter of local authorities in England have told us that they do not record any data at all about whether they provide any support to families with NRPF,  while more than 80% were unable to provide any reliable data on the numbers of families denied recourse and subsequently presenting to request a section 17 assessment on the basis of need, but refused assistance.

From an administrative perspective, children denied recourse to public funds are not simply marginalised- they are effectively erased. They are not counted, and they do not count, in stark contrast to the obsessive focus on numbers which characterises the ‘immigration debate’ more generally.

Recent policy developments threaten to deepen this exclusion still further. While Opposition parties propose radical and punitive anti-migrant initiatives, with the Conservatives seeking to withhold ‘settlement’- indefinite leave to remain in the UK- from anybody with a previous record of claiming public funds, and Reform UK proposing the abolition of settlement altogether, the present Labour administration, taking a leaf from the Trump playbook, is promoting the concept of ‘earned settlement’. This is a  ‘market fundamentalist’ framing which necessitates an erosion of inclusion, carrying the implication that ‘belonging’ in the UK is predicated on individuals’ financial worth -their salary, their savings, and their earning potential-rather than on attachments or human relationships.

The implications are profound. The approach risks hollowing out the meaning of citizenship itself, leaving the parents and carers of dependent British citizen children unable to plan their futures, permanently denied access to public funds and to the basic welfare safety, purely on the basis of their imputed ‘undeservingness’.   

There is already evidence that this climate of uncertainty and hostility is having an impact on migrants’ behaviour. Newspaper reports suggest that fear of immigration status repercussions is driving families still deeper into poverty,  with parents and carers granted time-limited leave to remain with recourse on the basis of their ‘exceptional circumstances’ cancelling active welfare benefits claims to which they are entitled.

Our own findings corroborate this pattern. Families denied recourse to public funds, but whose children appear to be eligible for the provision of free school meals, have told us that they have deliberately chosen not to claim them, fearing that doing so may jeopardise future immigration applications.

As one woman told me:

‘The UK is very good at saying one thing and meaning a different thing, or saying one thing and two days later they tell you ‘actually, no. What we said is this.’   And then they change it. So in order to avoid things like that… just keep all your support. We’ll swim and make it or swim and drown rather than ask for the support’

Children and families denied recourse to public funds are, in other words, being driven ever deeper into poverty- not by accident, but as direct consequence of   the escalating hostility surrounding immigration, settlement and welfare.  

The Home Office’s consultation on its earned settlement proposals remains open until February 12^th, and it is crucial that information about the proposals’ potentially damaging impacts are communicated. Praxis has produced a helpful explainer for anyone seeking guidance on how to respond.

The consultation process must engage with these realities, or else risk embedding poverty, exclusion, and administrative invisibility ever more deeply into the fabric of social policy.

For too many families presently rendered invisible, the message is clear: swim alone or drown in silence.