Olivia Blake

Yes, I agree. My hon. Friend makes an important point that we have choices. This is not inevitable, and the upcoming strategy is an opportunity that will hopefully allow us to turn the corner for many families. The all-party parliamentary group on poverty and inequality and the all-party parliamentary group on migration concluded in their report that the Government should limit the NRPF condition, especially for those on routes to settlement, to a maximum of five years. At a minimum, the Government should consider extending child benefit to migrant families with NRPF and expand funded childcare entitlement for working migrant parents. However, we also have to be honest that the most effective way to lift children out of poverty is to abolish NRPF entirely and to allow families to meet the thresholds for support via the existing means-tested welfare system. I know that this will not be the Government’s position, given their previous stance on this issue, but I ask that as many mitigations as possible are considered for this vulnerable group of children. According to COMPAS, removing the NRPF restriction for families with children under the age of 18 would lift significant numbers of children out of poverty, and the NRPF Network has found that lifting NRPF restrictions for families with children would result in a positive net value of £872 million over 10 years. Around two thirds of adults in the UK think that migrants should be able to claim the same welfare benefits as British citizens within three years, according to the National Centre for Social Research, which shows that the public are on the side of migrant children. In our joint statement in the inquiry report, which I have referenced quite a few times and which I hope the Minister has an opportunity to read, the co-chairs and the members of the APPGs remarked: “It is hard to avoid the conclusion that policy is sometimes designed to push people into poverty in the hope that it will deter others from moving to the UK, even though there is little evidence that this would indeed be a deterrent.” While reducing poverty should be a policy objective shared by the whole of government, sadly the evidence and research that I have presented today shows that, unfortunately, poverty and migration continue to be treated as completely separate issues. Given the large number of children who are impacted, that is completely wrong, and there should be moves to address that across government. We can all agree that child poverty has no place in one of the richest countries in the world in the 21st century. I agree with the Prime Minister when he said that action on child poverty will be “a measure of what this Government does”. Let us take the opportunity to take the necessary steps to alleviate poverty for all children in the UK, not just those with British passports.