Cat's story - "This Government separates rather than supports children"

No Recourse to Public Funds is putting families like mine in poverty. Some parents have to choose. What is going to be the meal? Do I skip? Some moms skip their own meal for the children to eat.

A healthy mother will bring up healthy children. When the mother is angry, the mother is nagging, the mother is frustrated, that will pass on to the children. And something I notice in our society is a lot of struggling mothers have No Recourse to Public Funds. These kids are British, and maybe their parents are not. Maybe their parents are in ten years' time on the route to settlement. But what about the kids? Why are we not looking at the children? They are the future of tomorrow. These children, mentally, they are passing through their own struggles. Then the mother, again, is passing through her own.

I want the government to stop undermining the status of parents. They should give free school meals to everyone and childcare to every mother, because every mother needs to work. I'm pleading for the government to do something about childcare and about No Recourse to Public Funds so that we parents can breathe again. We mothers, we need to breathe, and the children need to breathe.

Sometimes, the kids come home from school asking to go for a school trip. The last time was two hundred and fifty pounds. When they brought the slip at home, I looked at that slip. I didn't know what to say. They say, ‘mum, I'm going. My friends are going. This person is going. We are going... we're going to be fine, mum.’ You know, they were just dreaming about how the trip is going to be, what they're going to do in the trip. I felt bad. Can I provide? Can I be able to raise this two hundred and twenty pounds for her to go to the trip? But I don't have any option. I have to just try in any way I can do it. Because she has already set her sights on going, and I cannot tell her that she can't go. So these children mentally, physically, emotionally, these kids are hurting. Sometimes, they can't tell you. Sometimes, they can't express it. But I am a mom. I know. I look at their faces, ‘what is going on?’ I say. ‘Don't worry, I will do everything in my power to see that you go for the trip.’

The Government’s current policies separate, rather than support, children. My kids feel they are separated because sometimes they ask, ‘why can't we eat hot meal? Why can't we go for school trip? Why can't I have these shoes? Why can't I live this kind of life?’ Every child deserves the best in life. No child should feel they are separated or they don't belong to the society. No child should feel they are alone. And no child should feel that their mom or the dad has failed them.

Like my daughter says, this country is so lonely. This place is so lonely. So tell me, what kind of child says that? This Government has failed them.