On 7 May 2020, the High Court ruled that the Home Office policy of imposing the 'no recourse to public funds' condition on migrants who are on the 10-year route to settlement was unlawful. The judges said that the policy 'as presently formulated' breached Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment.
The case was brought by Deighton Pierce Glynn on behalf of a family affected, and was supported by The Unity Project. Project 17, represented by The Public Law Project and Amanda Weston QC, intervened in the case.
The judgment can be read here.
While this is a great result, and thanks to much hard work of all those involved, it does not go far enough. The policy will be 'amended' to ensure that those who are at risk of destitution are also able to access public funds (whether at grant of leave or when making a 'Change of Conditions' application), but to what extent this will change things in practice remains to be seen.
We hope that this important legal victory will mean fewer people at risk of destitution will have the NRPF condition imposed on their leave to remain, but we're concerned that the NRPF regime will largely remain despite the judgment.
Now, more than ever, the NRPF regime needs to end. We will continue to fight for the abolition of the NRPF condition for all, regardless of immigration status.
Read more about the case and why we intervened in the article we wrote for The Justice Gap here.
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