New Research: How the cost-of-living crisis is hitting people in the immigration system
As the cost-of-living crisis drags on, we’re seriously concerned about how the people we work with are faring. Many people in the immigration system are cut off from a safety net by the condition ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ on their visa. At the same time, they are forced to fork out thousands for visa fees and are excluded from cost-of-living support from the Government.
Following on from our research in Spring 2023, we went back to people last November to see how they were doing with the cost-of-living. We spoke to 80 Praxis community members about their experiences, here’s what we found...
Debt and extortionate visa fees
In October 2023 and February 2024, the Government increased the cost of visa fees and charges by a huge amount, with a family of four on the ten-year route to settlement now facing a bill of £10,000 every few years. Whilst the impact of these changes is not captured in our research yet, Praxis community members’ responses from November 2023 paint a picture of debt, distress and anxiety around the increased visa fees.
82% said they are in arrears on at least one essential bill or payment such as water, internet, phone, or credit cards. This is dramatically higher than for other low-income households, where 34% are in debt for food or household bills.
70% said they don’t be able to save anything in the next 12 months. Again, this is much higher than for the UK population as a whole, where 40% said they won’t be able to save in a similar reporting period.
Close to half (44%) said they expected to pay for visa fees for someone in their household in the next 12 months. However, when asked if they would be able to afford the recent increases in fees and charges, almost three quarters (74%) said no.
When asked how they will pay, 2 in 5 said they would have to apply for a fee waiver, while 1 in 5 said they would have to borrow money in order to afford the fees.
As the impact of increases to visa fees and the NHS surcharge kicks in over the coming months, we can only expect these pressures to intensify on the people we work with.
Going without essentials
According to JRF, a huge 63% of low-income households were still going without essentials in October. This has stayed roughly the same since May 2022. However, in this same period the number of people reducing or skipping meals, or going hungry in the previous 30 days – has risen from 5.2 million households to impacting 5.9 million households.
Sadly, our research also reveals food insecurity amongst Praxis community members who have No Recourse to Public Funds as a condition on their visa. This means they are unable to access the welfare safety net, even if they’re unable to put food on the table.
When asked about the impact that rising prices have had on their households in the last 6 months, 2 in 5 (42%) reported visiting a food bank – for women, this was even higher at 3 in 5 (62%).
61% of the people we talked to said they have on occasion cut down on the size of meals or skipped them entirely because there was not enough food.
Over half are relying on charities, including foodbanks, to meet their most basic needs. In stark contrast, only 3% of the general population reported getting help from charities, including foodbanks, in a similar reporting period. With over 2.6 million people with the No Recourse to Public Funds condition on their visa, this is a seriously concerning indication of how many migrant households are being pushed into hardship by this fine print.
Elevated risk of homelessness
We already know that the immigration system pushes people into poverty and onto the streets. Whilst people who’ve migrated only make up 14% of the population, across the UK over 1 in 4 people sleeping rough in the UK are migrants (Autumn 2023).
For Praxis community members, it’s clear that the pressures of high prices and visa fees and charges are also resulting in more and more people being made homeless.
Almost 1 in 5 people (18%) told us in October they’d spent one night or more on the streets in the last 6 months – a worrying increase from 1 in 10 in May 2023.
Almost a third of people have been worried about becoming homeless.
What needs to change right now?
In the March budget, the Government announced a 6-month extension to the Household Support Fund – a pot of money its gives local councils can use to help people struggling with the cost of living. Unfortunately, this is a short-term sticking plaster, rather than a long-term solution to prices remaining at record highs. More problematically for the people we work with, it’s not clear that those affected by the No Recourse to Public Funds condition can even access this support.
Ultimately, the simplest and most efficient way of supporting people through the cost-of-living crisis would be to scrap the blanket use of the NRPF condition. This would mean that any household in crisis is able to access the welfare safety net as and when they need it.
As well as scrapping NRPF, this Government needs to cut visa fees to only the processing costs before they push more families into debt.
Email your MP to stand against the eye watering visa fee hikes.