Written evidence submitted by the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium (RTS4937)
The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium is a group of over 100 organisations working collaboratively to ensure that the rights and needs of refugee and migrant children are promoted, respected and met in accordance with the relevant domestic, regional and international standards. Please see: https://refugeechildrensconsortium.org.uk/.
Together we have significant experience working with children, young people and families on various pathways to settlement. We have a joint interest in ensuring children, young people and families are on fair pathways to settlement and particularly that children and young people get the stability they need for their welfare and development.
This submission is made from the consortium and the consortium also supports the individual submissions of member organisations including We Belong, Reunite Families UK, Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and the Helen Bamber Foundation, among others.
We only answer questions below where we have expertise.
Potential impact of changes to pathways to settlement
In the experience of the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, the existence of a ten-year route to settlement since the Immigration Rules changes of July 2012 has not noticeably affected what we can observe in our practice of rates of immigration or rates of settlement. It is our experience that where people have family in the UK, they may well want to come to the UK or remain the UK whatever the pathway to settlement because family unity is so important.
In relation to refugees, we are not aware of evidence that shows that long routes to settlement reduce immigration of people claiming asylum. Indeed, the previous government planned to change the path to settlement for refuges under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and grant people group 2 leave (instead of five-year refugee status) on a ten-year route to settlement, and this policy came into effect until it was withdrawn in June 2023 (https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-06-08/hcws837). In the period that the longer refugee settlement route policy was in effect, in the year to June 2023, there were 97,390 people who applied for asylum. This is significantly more than the 75,181 people who applied for asylum in the year ending June 2022, when the longer route to settlement for refugees was not yet in effect. This would suggest at least that introducing a longer route to settlement for refugees will not immediately affect asylum claim numbers.
We do not have evidence to contribute on this.
The impact on migrant households already in the UK of longer routes and stricter requirements is very significant.
First, the financial and economic impact is considerable, especially for children. Having worked since summer 2024 to influence the child poverty strategy to include children with no recourse to public funds (NRPF) and on asylum support, our concern is that longer routes and stricter requirements will push even more children into poverty. As it stands, while data on NRPF and child poverty is insufficient, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research, in 2023/2024, 4.45 million children were living in poverty, of whom almost 40 per cent, or 1.75 million, were in families where both parents were born abroad. Children – including some British children – in families with NRPF lack access to the mainstream safety net designed to protect and support babies and children, including Universal Credit, housing benefit and child benefit. Added to this are the punishing fees payable multiple times along the route to settlement, in addition to the NHS surcharge and any legal costs.
As well as benefits, there is also a financial and economic impact of restricted access to childcare support. Funded childcare is not a public fund but there are some restrictions for children in migrant families. We advocate for the Department for Education to change the regulations that define persons subject to immigration control as not present in the UK for the purposes of establishing entitlement.[1] Families on visas should be able to access the following if they meet the income criteria:
- Universal Credit support with childcare (if they have recourse);
- Tax-free childcare; and
- The extended entitlement.
This would allow parents, including those without public funds and especially mothers, to return to work or increase their hours, increasing income in families where children are at higher risk of poverty. This would support progress towards the government’s milestone of 75% of five-year-olds reaching a good level of development.
Second, the personal and social impact of long settlement pathways for children is distinct to that of adults and is very considerable. To grow up in a country – to be from a country – but not to be recognised legally as belonging to that country permanently creates a disconnect. Children integrate and are de facto British, with British accents, with British educations, part of their communities, but their legal status is out of line with the reality of their life, their place in their community and their identity. A system will not work that has such a disconnect between children and young people’s social reality and a route to settlement that takes many years to catch up with that reality.
Children need stability. Permanent status is important for their development, self-realisation and for building their future. For young people growing up in the UK, living life in limbo is painful and damaging to wellbeing. On the effects of short-term leave on children and young people growing up in the UK, see We Belong’s 2019 research ‘Normality is a Luxury: How ‘limited leave to remain’ is blighting young lives’ at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c459ab1f2e6b156c9342d0a/t/5d09f90d10395e0001d7df4f/1560934675559/NIAL-Final.pdf. For refugee children, there is a well-established need for stability as they go through recovery and rebuild their lives. Article 39 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires measures to ‘promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of: any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts’. Refugee children have a fundamental need for recovery, stability and integration. Many are bereaved. Uncertainty is damaging to well-being and to building their lives and future. It is against their best interests.
The disastrous impact of longer routes is made worse for those already in the UK when it is not clear whom any changes will apply to. This makes it impossible for families to plan their lives and creates real child safeguarding risks, for example if a family is destitute but avoids applying for a change of conditions to access benefits for fear of the implications for their pathway to settlement. What safeguarding assessment has the government undertaken in relation to the penalties proposed under the earned settlement consultation to those already accessing public funds, recognising that families with children may cancel benefits in fear of the retrospective nature of the proposed penalties?
It is very important that the government undertakes a child rights impact assessment (CRIA) of any changes that lengthen the settlement route or impose stricter requirements. Child rights impact assessments are distinct from equality impact assessments. They are distinct from a consideration of the section 55 welfare duty. They are a necessary part of the decision-making process in order to foresee what will happen to children, as underlined recently by the covid inquiry, which has highlighted what happens when children’s rights are not considered in policy-making.
Delaying permanent status for people who have made Britain their home impedes integration. It makes it harder for those people – including children and young people who have grown up in the UK – to build their lives and be part of their communities. The importance of legal status and citizenship for integration was recognised in the Mayor of London’s 2018 social integration strategy, ‘All of Us: The Mayor’s strategy for social integration’ (https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/md2250_appendix_a_-_social_integration_strategy_post_cib.pdf), which contained a specific policy on ‘enabling the path to citizenship’.
For young people specifically, longer routes to settlement and stricter requirements hold them back. We refer the Committee to the evidence of We Belong in order to understand the impact of long routes to settlement on children and young people building their lives in the UK. As We Belong’s evidence will attest, there are young people thriving in our schools, contributing to our communities, and dreaming of futures, yet their potential is held back by long routes to settlement. In particular, a longer route to settlement could prevent young people who were born in or have grown up in the UK from going to university due to being ineligible for home fees and student finance. Blocking young people from pursuing their aspirations hinders integration and contribution and is deeply unfair on young people who have worked hard in the UK education system and who then cannot progress alongside their peers. Equally, longer routes to settlement may stop young people from accessing certain professions such as joining the police or civil service. There will also be a long delay for young people who have grown up in the UK achieving franchisement, with their ability to vote and stand in elections held back in the country they call home. It will also delay young people’s ability to transmit British citizenship to any children they go on to have.
As well as integration, changes to eligibility for settlement could have a range of other, very significant societal impacts. Putting hundreds of thousands of children and young people on precarious visas without state support for extended periods of their infancy, childhood and teenagerhood will have impacts for the government’s ability to meet its ambitions for raising the healthiest generation, for cutting child poverty, for 75 per cent of children reaching a Good Level of Development and for tackling educational inequalities. Penalising families for taking up state support could undermine government efforts in child health and education policy.
We do not have evidence to contribute on this.
How the new earned settlement rules could work
The whole concept of contribution fails to take account of babies, infants and children. It is crucial that the government understands and is able to provide data on how many children living in the UK will be affected by earned settlement changes. In general, children make up a significant proportion of users of the immigration system, especially those who are on visas that lead to settlement, including as dependants. So creating a system based on contribution must necessarily involve an accurate picture of how many visa-holders on routes to settlement are children and are simply unsuitable for a contribution-based approach. We would encourage evidence of the numbers of children on routes to settlement to be made publicly available to inform policy-making.
Further, we would particularly oppose any definition of contribution that failed to take account of care-giving and parenting.
We are against an earned settlement, contribution-based model and urge decision-makers to consider how babies, infants and children are to be viewed in such a model, as well as the equalities impacts of a contribution-based approach. Clearly, babies, infants and children cannot be subject to a system based on contribution. Nor should their pathway to settlement be dependent on a judgement of their parents’ contribution, over which they have no control. It would be against basic principles of fairness for two children, otherwise alike, to be on very different routes to settlement – with unequal access to vital systems of support – based not on their need for support but on a judgement made about their parents’ worthiness. We urge the Committee to caution against any system that would produce perverse, unequal outcomes like this for children.
We do not have evidence to contribute on this.
Dec 2025
[1] Childcare (Early Years Provision Free of Charge) (Extended Entitlement) Regulations 2016