Examining the gap between the Government’s commitments and the reality of its immigration policies: Child Poverty Strategy.

By Isabella Rooney, Research and Engagement Policy Officer, and Monserrat Escudero, Policy and Communications Manager on VAWG.

This is our second entry analysing three of the government’s key policy strategies to see if they hold water when it comes to migrant women and girls. If you missed our first entry on the Homelessness Strategy, you can read it HERE.

Child Poverty Strategy 

The Child Poverty Strategy highlights the scale and harms of child poverty in the UK, but completely overlooks the disproportionate vulnerability of migrant children to severe destitution¹.  Children born to migrant parents are twice as likely to experience poverty, and make up one-third of all children in deep poverty in the UK². In contrast to other groups, the strategy does not address the structural factors driving this vulnerability. This omission undermines the strategy’s ambition and objectives. Alongside this, the Home Office’s proposed policies will significantly increase long-term child poverty, making it impossible for the government to achieve its aims:

• Guidance on No Recourse to Public Funds:
  

  The Strategy contains no measurable, concrete goals to reduce migrant child poverty. The only commitments made are to issue guidance to local authorities on supporting destitute children with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), and to “consider” this group when making future decisions. Addressing the root causes of migrant child poverty would involve looking at the immigration system itself, which causes “destitution by design”, according to Parliamentary research³. Whilst the NRPF guidance for local authorities has since been published and importantly emphasises the need to safeguard children regardless of their immigration status, this stands to be completely overturned by the Home Office’s ‘Family Returns’ proposals, which would see local authorities prohibited from acting on safeguarding concerns and barred from supporting destitute undocumented children. Even the very limited measures included for migrant children in the Strategy would be dismantled by the Home Office’s proposals.

• Improving access to employment and childcare:
  

  Growing child poverty rates are driven by the increase in low-paid, insecure work and the inaccessibility of childcare. However, the strategy completely overlooks the systemic barriers to increasing income and accessing childcare for migrant families. Most people already on 10-year settlement routes work in low-paid, essential sectors such as care work and cleaning, in which Black and minoritised migrant women are over-represented⁴. The visa sponsorship system restricts people from changing employers, forcing many workers to endure long-term exploitation or unfair working conditions⁵. Moreover, the NRPF condition prevents parents from accessing state-funded childcare. Many of the women we support have to take on low-paid, insecure and part-time work whilst they wait to be eligible for settlement. As outlined above, the proposed settlement changes will trap migrant mothers in a vicious cycle of prolonged poverty without opportunities to increase their earnings. This will directly counteract the strategy’s aim to reduce child poverty through improved access to secure employment and childcare.

• Preventing homelessness and chronic temporary accommodation use:
  

  The Child Poverty Strategy calls for a preventative approach to homelessness. It highlights that the number of children living in temporary accommodation (TA) has doubled since 2010, significantly harming children who are trapped in long-term TA use. However, it fails to acknowledge the heightened risk of homelessness for migrant families. A quarter (26%) of people owed a homelessness duty were born outside the UK or EU, and three-quarters of households with NRPF spend more than a third of their income on housing, placing them at significant risk of homelessness⁶. Penalising use of public funds will harm families who need a safety net against destitution. We anticipate that many people will be discouraged from accessing public funds altogether, forcing them into homelessness to avoid longer settlement routes. Extending settlement timeframes will also increase the total visa fees that families must pay, compounding their vulnerability to destitution. By failing to address immigration policies as a root cause of homelessness, and setting out harmful proposals that increase economic precarity, the government will directly undermine the strategy’s preventative measures.

• Empowering young people:
  

  Both the Child Poverty Strategy and Youth Strategy highlight the importance of empowering young people in order to prevent long-term economic and social marginalisation. In contrast to this aim, the Earned Settlement model will be detrimental to the wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of young people, including those born in the UK or who have spent most of their lives here. Young people may miss out on university or face restricted access to essential services, undermining their integration and sense of belonging in the UK. For these young people, it will be much more difficult to escape poverty.

• Cross-government responsibility to reduce child poverty:
  

  The Strategy affirms that all government departments, including the Home Office, have an obligation to promote children’s wellbeing by reducing and preventing severe destitution. There is a glaring conflict between the Home Office’s responsibilities and its policy proposals. Already, the Home Office’s immigration policies are the direct cause of long-term child poverty⁷, and research suggests that the Earned Settlement model will leave roughly 130,000 children in poverty by 2029⁸. The Family Returns proposals will also deliberately remove safeguards against destitution and homelessness for thousands of families without immigration status. Despite recommendations from the Home Affairs Select Committee⁹, the Home Office has failed to publish a child poverty impact assessment for its immigration and asylum policy changes. The Home Office is neglecting its own obligations to destitute migrant children and will directly undermine the aims of the Child Poverty Strategy.

References:

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/child-poverty-strategy
2. Praxis (November 2025). ‘Why this Government must address the unique challenges facing migrant children.
3. APPGs on Poverty & Migration (April 2024). Report Summary: The Effects of UK Immigration, Asylum and Refugee Policy on Poverty. 
4. Praxis. (September 2023). A Joint Briefing on Capping routes to permanent settlement at 5 years. 
5. https://www.workrightscentre.org/publications/2025/parliamentary-report-acknowledges-scale-of-exploitation-on-the-skilled-worker-visa/
6. Johnson-Hunter, M. (8th August 2025). “Families with no recourse to public funds are trapped in hardship.” Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
7. Pinter, I., (August 2025). ‘The Government’s immigration policies are increasing child poverty.’
8. Praxis (March 2026). ‘Home Office settlement proposals threaten to keep 90,000 children in poverty.’ 
9. https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/52138/documents/290281/default/