Tens of thousands of children in migrant and refugee families in the UK are being denied access to government-funded childcare because of benefit restrictions linked to their parents’ immigration status, a report says.
Having “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF) means parents are not entitled to 30 hours of free childcare and are having to stay home to look after their young children instead of working. This is pushing families into poverty and denying their children the benefits of the early years education available to their peers, the report finds.
About 4 million people in the UK are affected by NRPF restrictions, according to the report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in conjunction with the human rights organisation Praxis, which works with migrants and refugees.
They include about 71,000 families who would otherwise qualify for 30 hours of free childcare a week – provided they met the income threshold – were it not for NRPF restrictions, which ban access to the social security system.
The report argues that the system of childcare entitlements excludes families facing greatest disadvantage, despite the government’s manifesto commitment to break down barriers to opportunity for every child.
Families affected by NRPF are entitled to a halved offer of 15 funded hours of care for their three- and four-year-olds, and some low-income families may be entitled to care for their two-year-olds, but they cannot access any other support with childcare costs, including the extended entitlement for working parents, and universal credit support with childcare costs and tax-free childcare.
Shams Sarker came to London three years ago from Bangladesh under a skilled migrant work visa, but his two-year-old daughter – who was born in the UK – is not entitled to the same government-funded childcare as other children.
As a result, he and his wife take it in turns to stay at home to look after her, reducing working hours and income. His daughter, meanwhile, loses out on the opportunity to mix and learn with other children in an early years setting.
“We don’t get access to certain things and have to pay extra for healthcare, fine,” said Sarker. “But at least let children have equal rights. I expected the rules to be the same for all children. My baby is growing up and she’s not getting the same benefit that any other baby born here will have.”
IPPR and Praxis surveyed 159 parents who had at least one child below school age and were affected by NRPF restrictions. They found 55% used some sort of childcare, compared with 72% of the general popul ation. More than a third (36%) of those that used childcare relied on unofficial childcare from relatives and friends, and 41% of those who did not use childcare said the lack of a free entitlement had stopped them or their partner from getting a job.
Dr Lucy Mort, a senior research fellow at IPPR, said: “Restricting access to childcare forces parents out of work, pushes families deeper into poverty, and holds children back from vital early education. Lifting these unfair barriers would not only support working parents but also give every child the best start in life.”
Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz, a policy and public affairs manager at Praxis and co-author of the report, added: “If this government is serious about ensuring that more children are ready for school, lifting these restrictions on support with childcare costs is a commonsense solution that will benefit some of the most disadvantaged children in our communities.”
A separate report by the IPPR found almost half of children in families with non-UK born parents lived in poverty, compared with 25% of other children. It predicted that the child poverty strategy, expected to be published in spring, would fail unless it addressed growing hardship among children with parents born outside the UK.
Hafsa, a mother of two who is on a skilled worker visa, told researchers: “I can’t even buy clothes for my children. I can’t buy them shoes; I can’t buy them a single toy. In the last 10 days of the month, I struggle to buy food for the children.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Giving every child the best start in life is central to our mission to break the unfair link between background and success and, through our Plan for Change, we’ll get tens of thousands more children – a record proportion – school-ready by age five.
“That’s why, despite having to take tough decisions to fix the foundations of the economy, we have prioritised investing £15m to kickstart our rollout of thousands of places in school-based nurseries to meet local need.
“Parents with no recourse to public funds can access 15 hours of funded childcare per week from when their child turns two, subject to wider eligibility, and we will continue to work to make sure government-funded hours are fair and accessible to parents.”
