British - to be or not to be?
Praxis runs peer-led groups where people with lived experience of migration can seek support and campaign to get their voices heard on issues that affect them. The WINGS group is for mothers with young children. In July 2020, they spoke in parliament at the All Party Parliamentary Group on No Recourse to Public Funds, chaired by MP Kate Osamor and organised by Just Fair and Project 17.
Here they speak out in their own words against the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) provision in a series of blogs, denouncing the many ways it impacts them.
A hypocritical and racist system
You might think you understand what NRPF means, but if you don’t wear the shoes then you can’t know where it hurts. As WINGS members, we are facing irregular immigration status, poverty, poor housing, and destitution; most of us have NRPF. But we support each other through action.
“We are being taxed like everyone else but we have no access to a safety net for our children and our families”
NRPF is a label that discriminates against us. For those of us who have the right to work, we are being taxed but we have no access to benefits to support our children and families. Therefore, we have to work harder, for longer hours than everyone else.
This to us is exploitation. Immigrants are expected to work in the least acceptable working conditions, live in squalid housing, pay our taxes and pay to remain here, but we are not allowed a safety net if we become ill, unable to work or lose our jobs. With NRPF, the UK is also creating the conditions for modern slavery and forced labour.
“We are contributing to the economy so we should be able to benefit from it.”
British nationals are required to pay their taxes and that covers the NHS. Immigrants are required to pay taxes, the Immigration Health Surcharge fees and the application fees for our visas. This means we are paying twice for a system which we have very limited access to: we are allowed to visit the GP and hospital if we are ill, however, we are not allowed free prescription if we need medication. We are contributing to the economy so we should be able to benefit from it. This system is hypocritical and racist.
What’s more, the rising costs of the leave to remain application and Immigration Health Surcharge fees means we have to save over £1,000 per year to pay for our right to be in this country. The Immigration Health Surcharge will increase again by more than 50% this year. This combined with NRPF has a catastrophic effect on families, saving to pay these costs is causing children to live in this first world country in extreme poverty.
The social support that NRPF blocks us from is vast, but the most painful part for us is how it directly affects our children. You can never explain to a child why their parents work so hard and yet they are still entitled to so little.
In the battle against Covid, we are unprotected
As the number of Covid-19 cases keeps increasing and more than one million people worldwide have died of the virus, we will all agree that we are currently in a medical war and the Government should be protecting everyone in this country.
However, people like us who have No Recourse to Public Funds are not protected even though we are here, in the UK. This is discrimination and it is unsafe for everyone. Many of us are frontline workers, the foot soldiers who are working tirelessly to protect this country in the battle against Covid-19, and yet many of us are discriminated against and denied access to support when we need it ourselves.
“We are the key workers”
It is a known fact that BAME people are twice as likely to die from Covid-19, yet we have to work more, are exposed more, and often have to live in cramped conditions because we can’t get any help from the government when we are in crisis. It’s painful to hear people like MP Craig Wittaker say that black and minority ethnic people didn’t take Covid-19 seriously.
Portraits of doctors, nurses and other NHS staff who responded to the COVID-19 pandemic were captured by photographer Rankin to celebrate the NHS birthday.
Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash
We are the key workers - in many BAME and migrant families there is a key worker or key workers who could not isolate properly because they were needed on the front line. Others could not isolate because they could not afford to - without some kind of welfare support, to keep a roof over your family’s head and food on the table, could you go into lockdown? We often live in cramped conditions in private rented accommodation, often sharing with others because we can’t afford anything better. Comments like that aren’t only far from the truth, they are another way to discriminate against us.
“Right now it is 100 times harder on our mental health and we struggle to provide for our children without a safety net during this pandemic”
Our children are not left out of this discrimination. They have been unable to do schoolwork or meet with friends online because we don’t have access to computers and the internet. This was not provided to them in the same way it was provided to other children during this pandemic. They are falling behind and it is impacting their wellbeing.
We often couldn’t access food vouchers, which meant our kids were not fed properly or healthily. The rates of obesity are increasing in our community, and to say the government is launching a campaign to fight obesity to reduce the rate of fatalities, then where are we as a community? If children aren’t eating right they cannot build and enhance their immune system, and it affects them psychologically. It can also lead to increasing complications of Covid-19, and this is putting us at increased risk. Right now it is 100 times harder on our mental health as we struggle to provide for our children without a safety net during this pandemic.
We need to be safe. We need our children to be safe. And let’s remember that if some of us are not protected during this crisis, then no one really is-after all, we are part of this community and don’t forget that we are contributing to it.
Tower in Haggerston, London. Photo by Ben Allan on Unsplash
“All we are asking for is a decent home”
Because the Government has a duty of care towards all children, single mums on NRPF can be supported through what’s called Section 17 – a provision in the Children’s Act which gives power to local authorities to provide accommodation and financial support to families with children in need, including those who have no recourse to public funds. However, there are many reports that have found the accommodation provided through Section 17 to be woefully inadequate.
One single mum in WINGS has three children in one bedroom with her, in an overcrowded house shared with other people. Her older child who is 16 years old is struggling to deal with classes due to the siblings distracting him. The child of another mum in WINGS has developed asthma due to the poor living conditions her and her family face.
“Having no access to public funds means that single mothers and children from immigrant homes are twice as likely to end up in destitution.”
These are not unusual situations, and it happens time and time again. It is very common for families supported through Section 17 to be moved multiple times in close succession, and for landlords to refuse people with NRPF as tenants.
Having no access to public funds means that single mothers and children from immigrant homes are twice as likely to end up in destitution. This forces us to work without a safety net, and the government knows that we have a lower quality of life because of it.
All we are asking is for our families to have access to a decent home. The government can be challenged on Universal Credit and the hardship it puts people through, and it also needs to be challenged on NRPF. That’s why we are speaking up to decision-makers and parliamentarians wherever we can.
Illustration by Javie Huxley
Inequality has made our children’s futures blurred
Without a safety net for us and our children, we live in constant anxiety and stress. This affects our children negatively - an unbalanced parent will raise an unbalanced child. Many women who find themselves in this situation are forced to remain in abusive relationships just to have a source of income and a roof over their heads.
“Without support, how can I raise a balanced child? ”
There are physical as well as psychological impacts. We do not have the means to provide our children with healthy food, so they grow up eating junk food and unhealthy food, leading to poor health and increased risk of chronic conditions. And because we have to work longer hours to support our families, as single mothers we can’t spend time with our children. We are not there to support them emotionally and physically and can only work hard to provide the best that we can for them - and as single mothers with young children this is almost never enough.
“How do you explain to a child that they cannot have hot school meals with the other children at their school?”
These children are the future of this country, yet because of the No Recourse to Public Funds rules, they will be forced to grow up in unsafe and insecure environments. How do you explain to a child that they cannot have hot school meals with the other children at their school? How do you explain to a child that they are not entitled to extracurricular activities, like football or after-school clubs? How do you explain to a child that they are not entitled to free school trips? Some British children are treated differently from other British children, and are suffering because their parents do not have access to public funds. NRPF is a label and our children are treated unequally.
Children with special needs require special care, access to wellbeing programmes and a comfortable home. There is no system in place to protect children with special needs from the discrimination of NRPF. They are regularly placed in small rooms in a shared house or a studio flat with no access to a garden. This limits their movement and can hinder their development.
Without public funds, the working parents - often single mothers - of these children have no other choice but to leave them in the care of unregistered child minders and friends who most times are not trained to look after children with special educational needs properly. They are unable to access nursery funding and so do not qualify for the early education and socialization provided in a nursery setting unless they have a social worker.
“Access to a safety net should not be a privilege but a basic human right.”
Children with additional needs are entitled to disability allowance which helps the parents to pay for recreational activities, basic leisure, and special toys. However, parents without access to public funds do not get this kind of assistance. Children are often left to adapt to everyday life without the basic support they need.
No Recourse to Public Funds affects immigrants from every corner of UK society. The people that are affected the most are children, people with disabilities and single parents. People who are already vulnerable. The staff at your favourite supermarket may not have access to help with childcare, your nurse may be facing this issue. Your mother's favourite carer may be living in an overcrowded house because of NRPF. Your child’s best friend may not be eligible for a warm school meal. Access to a safety net should not be a privilege but a basic human right.
WINGS Members
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