Child Poverty and Homelessness: Asylum and Settlement Policies

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications for their child poverty and homelessness strategies of their proposed changes in asylum and settlement policies.

The Government will ensure that the needs of vulnerable people, including families with children, are fully considered as part of our asylum and settlement reforms. We remain committed to assessing all proposals carefully to create a system which is both fair and sustainable. Ministers are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and other stakeholders to understand the potential impacts of these changes, especially in relation to child poverty and homelessness.

My Lords, the child poverty and homelessness strategies have been widely welcomed, but there is growing concern that the asylum and settlement policies will, as a recent Home Affairs Committee report warned, lead to more child poverty, thereby undermining these strategies. The Home Affairs Committee is clear that

“The Government will need to understand and mitigate any increase in child poverty”.

Will my noble friend therefore please undertake, first, to publish now an assessment of the impact of their policies on child poverty and homelessness, and secondly, to review and ease the “no recourse to public funds” rules, actual and proposed, so as to meet the child poverty strategy’s commitment to ensuring that vulnerable migrant children receive the support that they require, regardless of immigration status?

I say to my noble friend that the aim of these measures is to reduce misuse of support, not to make people homeless or to increase child poverty, which it is a core mission of the Labour Government to eradicate. We will not deny support to those who genuinely need it and who have no way to support themselves. My noble friend will also know that we have consulted on these measures. We have had some 200,000 responses and we are currently assessing them. A full economic impact assessment and equality impact assessment of the regulations will be undertaken in due course, and we will look at the responses to the consultation to inform how we deal with these measures as we go forward.

My Lords, as a former director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, I am concerned that the changes to the duration of refugee protection may create a state of permanent vulnerability and instability for refugee households. What assessment has the Minister made of the likely impact of these changes on the mental health of refugees, and their implications for provision of services by the NHS and others?

I think the noble Baroness will know and will want to be assured that the whole purpose of these changes is to make both asylum and refugee status quicker in dealing with those outcomes. We have made some changes, and during the 30-month period of protection, if it is granted, refugees will continue to have the sanctuary their protection requires, and it will be renewed if they still require it. But the important thing is to assess claims quickly in order to make sure that we grant status quickly, so that people can earn a living and integrate into society.

My Lords, on the settlement policy, does my noble friend the Minister accept that extending the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five to 10 years for care workers and other workers represents a breach of trust? They came here at our invitation and in good faith to care for our elderly and vulnerable people, and now they are being betrayed. Will the Government reconsider this policy and honour their original commitment?

As my noble friend knows, the earned settlement consultation ran for 12 weeks. It began on 20 November 2025 and closed on 12 February 2026. We are now reviewing and analysing all the responses received. That analysis will help us inform the development of that earned settlement model. I value the contribution that many people who came to this country as care workers have made. We need a supply of care workers; we need people to do those jobs in our community, but I also encourage people in this country who are unemployed at the moment to take on that work. We are assessing the contributions; as I said, we have had more than 200,000 responses and it is fair that we assess them. I assure my noble friend that the Government will act in the interests of the care sector and of the people who are here in the long term, as part of our response.

My Lords, homelessness in London has increased by 63% over the last decade—a rise largely driven by an influx of illegal immigrants, who themselves have seen a fivefold rise in homelessness in just over four years. Does the Minister agree with His Majesty’s Opposition that the arrival of people with no means to support themselves will naturally lead to an increase in homelessness, and that the Government must go further than the past and current changes they are making to prevent all illegal channel crossings, which are contributing to this problem?

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s contribution. I just say gently that, in the four years between 2021 and 2024, an additional 2.6 million people arrived and 101,000 claimed asylum. The scheme to assess that was very slow and almost non-existent towards the end. We have increased the speed of asylum claims to make sure that we remove people who do not have asylum claims and integrate those who do. We returned 58,539 people between 1 July 2024 and 31 January 2026, and we have halved the number of asylum hotels from the 400 under the noble Lord’s watch to the 200 that are operating today. We have saved considerable resource in doing so. This is a problem and a challenge, but I am not looking to implement the lessons of the previous Government in this Government.

My Lords, with huge respect to the Minister, how on earth is he going to analyse 200,000 responses? Surely that is analysis paralysis.

No, it is not. We have had a consultation and we have 200,000 responses. We can look at those: AI is much used in the Home Office now to analyse what is happening. The key point is that the Government are trying to take action: we are trying to reduce the asylum backlog, reduce hotel use, stop small boat crossings and take action on all these important issues. There are certainly some areas of assessment and, going back to my noble friend’s original Question, we need to look at the impacts on child poverty and on families. But we need to take action to ensure that we regulate asylum and refugee status while we meet our international obligations and ensure that we are a civilised society, as we are now and will be in the future.

My Lords, the latest British Red Cross health equity report found that 73% of refugees and asylum seekers experience multiple layers of disadvantage compared to 20% of people supported by health and care systems. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of the proposed changes on the health and well-being of children in asylum-seeking families?

My noble friend points to an extremely important issue. We will undertake a full economic and equality impact assessment of the proposals. We are using the responses from the consultation—going back to the noble Lord’s point—to look at what issues have been raised. We want to ensure that children in particular remain and have that support. Deprivation is a constant factor for unaccompanied children in particular; it is, in many ways, why people have tried to come to the United Kingdom. But I know that my noble friend also recognises that we need a regulated, efficient system that deals with people quickly, sorts out asylum claims, reduces the backlog, closes the costly hotels, stops the boats crossing the channel and, in doing so, allows for free and fair routes to be applied for so that those who are successful can join the economic community in this United Kingdom and earn a living.

My Lords, the Government are to be congratulated on the fair pay agreement in the social care sector, because we know that one of the best routes out of poverty for children is making sure that their parents have decent, well-paid work. Does my noble friend accept that insecurity of settlement status makes workers less confident and less able to enforce the rights they will get?

I am grateful to my noble friend. She has campaigned for many years with the Trades Union Congress for rights at work. I have campaigned for rights at work, a minimum wage and good conditions for people in the care sector, and our Employment Rights Bill in this House and the House of Commons is to make sure people have decent rights at work. Nothing the Labour Government are going to do will undermine those rights, but we do need to get a grip on asylum and refugee status to ensure that we speedily process individuals and determine who has a right to stay and to have refugee or asylum status and that those who do not are removed. That is part of the process of the Government, who are trying to restore order in the very chaotic system we have inherited.