Praxis advocacy response to covid-19
Those who have made the UK their home often face barriers in accessing employment, housing and services. During the COVID-19 pandemic needs are multiplied, and barriers become higher.
In this context people’s needs and support available are changing very often, but from day one of the Covid emergency Praxis has joined forces with dozens of organisations, strongly advocating so that everyone in the UK can live in safety.
In particular:
We have signed a joint letter to the Prime Minister led by NACCOM, including a set of key policy recommendations that would minimise risks around the spread of the virus, whilst ensuring that migrants experiencing homelessness and destitution are able to access vital support, healthcare and appropriate accommodation.
We wrote to Home Secretary Priti Patel to call for urgent changes in Home Office policy to ensure the safety of migrants. The letter, led by JCWI, Medact and Liberty, asks that everyone has access to NHS care and other urgent services regardless of their immigration status, and asks for more provisions to ensure migrants’ well being.
We also urged the Home Secretary to extend the deadline for registration for the EU Settlement Scheme. The letter, led by Here for Good, Bindmans and Seraphus, also asks that people with pre-settled status can access public support.
We urged the Secretary of State to ensure protection for survivors of domestic violence, in a letter coordinated by the campaign Step Up Migrant Women.
We joined Freedom from Torture and dozens of other organisations, and asked the Home Secretary that the weekly allowance for those seeking asylum is raised to match what is received by people on universal credit. When asylum support rate were subsequently increased to just 26p a day, we signed another joint letter asking to review this decision.
Alongside over 20 other organisations, we are calling on the government to immediately suspend the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) system in its entirety for the duration of this public health emergency.
We joined Doctors of the World and dozens of other organisations and asked the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Health to suspend NHS Charging Regulations preventing migrants from accessing free healthcare.
Our CEO Sally Daghlian OBE wrote to the Evening Standard, asking that the Home Office relaxes its policies around immigration to make sure that people can self isolate in safety instead of having to attend meetings in person, or worrying about becoming ‘overstayers’.
We fed into a Guardian article focusing on policy development in housing provision by Local Authorities, highlighting urgent needs.
A former service user of Praxis was quoted in the Independent, talking about the challenges she is facing due to NRPF since she lost her job.
The situation is changing every day. While the government has taken some positive steps in terms of supporting migrants in the UK - including making sure that they are not charged for NHS treatments for COVID-19 - much still needs to be done.
At Praxis we are constantly monitoring the situation on the ground to make sure that needs are highlighted, so that we can advocate for effective solutions.