A landmark report published today by the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee finds that the Government’s earned settlement proposals will entrench poverty, increase the risk of labour exploitation, and harm children, reports the Work Rights Centre.

The Committee found that:

• Any retrospective changes would be “manifestly unfair”, “may be unlawful”, and would damage the UK’s reputation, making the UK “a less attractive destination for highly skilled migrants in the future”. 
• Reports of abuse and exploitation of sponsored workers are alarming, exposing thousands of sponsored workers to severe poverty. The Committee supports the call to “decouple visas from sponsors” to reduce the risk of exploitation.
• Mandatory income requirements for settlement are “too rigid”. The Committee calls for exemptions for vulnerable groups including migrants on maternity leave, unpaid carers and those with long-term illnesses or disabilities.
• The changes being proposed will have a “significant” impact on children, increasing poverty, poor health, and reducing access to opportunities. “The Committee does not feel it is fair to judge children by the decisions and actions of their parents.” 
• The number of people without an immigration status or experiencing poverty could increase as a result of the high cost of repeated visa fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge.
• Proposals for a 20-year settlement route for refugees coupled with a review of their status every 2.5 years, “undermines opportunities” for refugees to make long-term decisions regarding work and family life.
• The Home Office has been “too reactive” on immigration, failing to plan for the long term, and has taken an approach to impact assessments that is “inconsistent”.

The Home Office will now have two months to provide the Committee with a formal response. We fear that this may come too late for scrutiny, given the government wishes to implement “earned” settlement in the autumn.

Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre said: “This report confirms what we have been saying for years: that ministers are making immigration policy on the fly, without proper impact assessments and without a long-term plan, causing real harm to people who call the UK home. 

“It is reassuring to see the committee acknowledge the harm ‘earned’ settlement would cause particularly to children and vulnerable people – but exemptions are not enough. These proposals must be dropped in their entirety.

“PM-hopeful Andy Burnham must choose a new path: drop ‘earned’ settlement altogether to avoid worsening the lives of millions of UK residents and their loved ones.”

The Work Rights Centre is a registered charity dedicated to ending in-work poverty. Its multilingual team helps migrants and disadvantaged Britons to access employment justice and improve their social mobility, by providing free and confidential advice in the areas of employment, immigration, and social security, and by mobilising frontline intelligence to address the systemic causes of inequality. Its research on migrant worker exploitation, cited in the report, includes: Systemic drivers of migrant worker exploitation in the UK (November 2023).

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ukhouseoflords/30034604492 Creator: House of Lords Copyright: rogerharrisphotography.co.uk/house of lords Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed