Seminars

Migrants’ Access to the Welfare State

Hilary 2024 / Thursdays, 3:45pm - 4:45pm, Convened by Lucy Leon & Carlos Vargas-Silva

Hybrid: Kellogg College, Oxford & online (Zoom)

Overview

Around 2.6 million people living in the UK at the end of 2022 held valid visas that, in most circumstances, would deny them access to the welfare state – an increase of over 1 million in just two years from just under 1.5 million in 2020 (Migration Observatory, 2023). Whilst not all people subject to the visa condition will face economic hardship, the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) immigration policy does place them more at risk of crisis and destitution if their circumstances change and they find themselves locked out of the welfare safety net with limited avenues of support. Through the seminar series, we will explore the historical roots of exclusionary welfare policies in the UK, consider how these operate in the present context and what support is provided to vulnerable groups in the most acute need, hear from people with lived experience and, finally, explore how the UK compares with other European countries in its provision of access to the welfare state.

These seminars will be hybrid.

Please join us in person at The Hub, Kellogg College. To attend in person, you must register in advance: https://forms.office.com/e/WiV9x60k3b.

The Hub will be open 5 – 10 minutes before the seminar starts; this venue is wheelchair accessible.

To join online via Zoom, you must register in advance: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcpdOGsqD8pHtED_Rb6xY5KG0cuEm9EAN76

This link will allow you to register once, and then you can choose one or more occurrences to attend. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Attendance is free, and all are welcome.

Please download the COMPAS HT24 Seminar Poster and share it widely with your networks.

Seminars

25 January, 2024: ‘Cost-of-living’ Crisis For All; Help Only For Some

Ilona Pinter, Researcher and doctoral student, the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics

Rising living costs have affected households globally, pushing many more families into poverty. This is no less true in the UK context, which saw a steep rise in inflation during 2021 and 2022. To ameliorate some of the pressures on households, the UK government introduced various measures, including helping households with energy costs and targeted support for those considered most 'in need'. While many scholars point to the growing inadequacies of the social security regime, it nevertheless provides an infrastructure which, during the inflationary period, has been used to target discrete payments at low-income households and those with additional needs like pensioners and disability benefit recipients. But most migrant households who do not have a settled status in the UK are excluded from the social security system outright by the so-called ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) policy. These households have been bypassed mainly by support measures, which are directed at benefit recipients or passported from benefit eligibility, leading to more significant income disparities between migrant and non-migrant families. This working paper brings together policy analysis, utilising administrative, documentary, and qualitative data, and examines how the exclusionary infrastructure set up and maintained by successive governments in the UK continues to restrict financial support to migrant households, even in times of crisis, leading to increased poverty and material deprivation risk. As net migration grows, new immigration reforms are implemented, and while access to social protection continues to be restricted, inequalities are likely to grow further.

Ilona Pinter is a researcher and policy analyst who has worked on immigration, asylum, poverty and inequality issues over the last 15 years, previously at The Children’s Society and more recently through her doctoral research at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE. Her doctoral research examines the needs, experiences, and outcomes of children and families receiving Asylum Support and restricted from the labour market. More generally, her research focuses on poverty and inequality among children and young people who are affected by immigration control, looking particularly at the role of immigration policies and political institutions. She chairs a knowledge exchange group – the Migrant Poverty Data and Evidence Group - bringing together academics and cross-sector professionals working collaboratively on research related to policies like the ‘no recourse to public funds’ restrictions. She has also been involved in other research on the effects of poverty and family debt on children, access to legal aid, and support for separated young people. Publications | X | Instagram

LSE Social Policy | CASE
15 February, 2024: Lived Experience Panel - Hearing From Experts by Experience

Experts by Experience from the COMPAS and the NACCOM Network Community Researchers team will be sharing findings from two recent research projects focused on amplifying people’s lived experiences of being locked out of the mainstream welfare safety net:

The Understanding Migrant Destitution in the UK research project (COMPAS) explores the effects of UK immigration policy on migrant destitution in the UK, highlighting the scale of migrant destitution, the changing face of migrant destitution and the vital role of local authorities in supporting this group – which includes many children and vulnerable adults. The project set up an Experts by Experience Advisory Board to ensure the research could draw on the expertise of people with lived experience by establishing a safe and empowering space for experts by experience to advise the project in a non-tokenistic and inclusive way. In partnership with NACCOM Network, the project also offered research skills training to members of the Advisory Board so they could be involved as community researchers, co-facilitating focus groups with people with lived experience.

NACCOM’s Refused? Experiences following a negative asylum decision research report was designed, led and delivered by NACCOM’s volunteer Community Researchers, who all have lived experience of destitution and immigration control. It draws on 27 in-depth interviews with service users in the NACCOM network. It contains powerful qualitative findings that explore the devastating personal impact and trauma that can follow a negative asylum decision. The report also outlines the systemic and practical barriers that people face, which can prevent them from going on to resolve their immigration status after an initial refusal.

Lucy Leon, COMPAS Researcher and Finn McKay, NACCOM Network Community Research Facilitator, will support the panel.
29 February, 2024: Open for the childless skilled only? The social rights of third country nationals as workers and parents in the UK and the European Union

Dr Traute Meyer, Professor of Social Policy, University of Southampton

Governments in the UK and EU accept skilled workers from outside their territories to boost economic growth and reverse the trend of their ageing societies. At the same time, populations are sceptical about sharing welfare state rights with newcomers. To square this circle, governments have restricted social rights for new immigrants in many European countries. However, while EU governments must observe Treaty legislation, the UK is no longer bound by such constraint. Little research exists on how much the rights of working migrants born outside the EU and their dependents diverge between countries and between immigrants and citizens and how the difference can lead to inequality between the two groups and nations.

This paper will take stock of the rights of such third-country nationals (TCNs) who come to work in the EU and the UK and their dependants during their first five years. Analysing EU- and national legislation will show that the UK is now an outlier in Europe. While most EU governments are moving towards granting TCNs the same or similar rights as EU migrants and citizens in the UK, after Brexit, many more are now excluded from essential benefits. The paper will assess what this difference means for the income of a TCN household with a skilled worker, a partner and children compared with a citizen-household in the UK, Germany and Ireland as EU countries with a similarly large intake of TCNs.

Dr Traute Meyer is a professor of social policy at the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Southampton. She has researched the social rights of immigrants in Europe, including in the UK after Brexit.
7 March, 2024: The Long Durée of the Welfare-Migration Nexus in Britain: The No Recourse to Public Funds Rule

Dr Eve Dickson, Research Fellow, UCL Social Research Institute

In recent years, we have witnessed rising interest in the welfare-migration nexus in Britain, most notably in the ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) immigration condition, which briefly entered the public domain when former Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed his surprise at the policy’s existence during the Covid-19 pandemic. Research and advocacy link the widespread use of NRPF to either the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which contains the current iteration of the rule, or the emergence of the UK’s self-proclaimed ‘hostile’ immigration environment in 2012. This risks presentism and methodological nationalism by obscuring NRPF’s longer history and the colonial roots of European welfare states. Drawing on early-stage research as part of the Social Reproduction in the Shadows: Making Lives with No Recourse to Public Funds project, this talk explores some central aspects of the history of the NRPF policy and its contestation to better understanding how and why the policy has changed over time and to what effect.

Dr Eve Dickson is a Research Fellow at the UCL Social Research Institute. Her research focuses on migration, families and childhood, and subjectivity. She is co-leading the ESRC-funded study Social Reproduction in the Shadows: Making Lives with No Recourse to Public Funds.

Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL | Shadows: Making lives with NRPF

Seminars

Migrants’ Access to the Welfare State

Hilary 2024 / Thursdays, 3:45pm - 4:45pm, Convened by Lucy Leon & Carlos Vargas-Silva

Overview

Seminars

‘Cost-of-living’ Crisis For All; Help Only For Some

Lived Experience Panel - Hearing From Experts by Experience

Open for the childless skilled only? The social rights of third country nationals as workers and parents in the UK and the European Union

The Long Durée of the Welfare-Migration Nexus in Britain: The No Recourse to Public Funds Rule