Recommendation 8

HM Government Acknowledged

We recognise the desire for the Government to publish data on the number of migrants in the UK who are subject to a no recourse to public funds (NRPF) condition at any given time, but there is no single figure which can be published to cover every possible case in the UK. This is not simply about cost and administrative burden; it is not possible to provide an accurate figure of the number of people in the UK who are subject to NRPF at any given time. The NRPF condition applies to millions of visa applications, the vast majority of which are for visitors and other temporary migrants who would have no requirement to access funds during their stay. It also applies to those without status, many of whom may not be in touch with the Home Office. Information captured by the Home Office for the purposes of NRPF does not account for people who have left the country, or all those in the UK without lawful status because many may not be in contact with the Home Office. Therefore, this information cannot be used to measure accurately all those subject to NRPF at any one time. The Home Office’s Chief Statistician wrote to the Office for Statistics Regulation last July to set this out. His response can be found at: https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/response-from-daniel-shaw-to-ed- humpherson-parliamentary-question-response/ Only those who are normally or habitually resident in the UK are entitled to access benefits and social housing, reflecting their strength of connection to the UK. This includes those with indefinite leave to remain, refugees, protected persons and those granted discretionary leave. Since July 2020, the Home Office has published the numbers of people who are on a Family or Human Rights route and apply to have their NRPF condition lifted, which is an indication of how many people may be impacted by the NRPF policy. The latest quarterly statistics were published in February and these show that in the fourth quarter of last year, 1,048 people on these routes had the NRPF condition lifted following a request made to the Home Office. This is a lower figure than the 4,563 who had the NRPF condition lifted in the first quarter immediately following the onset of the global pandemic. Further information can be found below: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-protection-data-february-2021 The Government recognises that some individuals within the homeless population may have an NRPF condition attached to their immigration status. At present, we do not collect data on the number of individuals with an NRPF condition estimated to be homeless. The Rough Sleeping Snapshot gives a breakdown of the nationalities of individuals found to be rough sleeping in England. The latest published data estimated that of those rough sleeping on a single night in autumn 2020, 472 people (18%) were EU (Non-UK) nationals and 128 people (5%) were from outside the EU and the UK. Further information can be found below: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england-autumn-2020/ rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england-autumn-2020