Comprehensive spending review 2007
What it needs to deliver on child poverty

Provide benefit entitlement to all UK residents equally, irrespective of immigration status

Benefits and tax credits must be provided on the basis of need. As need does not vary by immigration status, neither should entitlement. Managing migration is the proper preserve of the Home Office, but the mechanisms by which this is achieved ought to operate entirely independently of the benefit and tax credit system. Failure to implement such a system is not only counter-productive, but violates natural justice and constitutes a poor welcome to those who have arrived in this country and may well stay.

Those seeking asylum receive a lower entitlement to financial assistance than British citizens, receiving 70 per cent of the adult payments in income support, plus full entitlements to the child elements (but since the child elements are a smaller element of the family's total entitlement, the effect - reducing total entitlement - is a marked one). Parents seeking asylum are also prohibited from working until their asylum application is resolved - there is no option here for work as the route out of poverty.

The treatment of children in families subject to immigration control, and particularly those who are seeking asylum, is in stark contrast to the considerable support directed towards children in the UK. Those immigrant groups are numerically small, but face a high risk of poverty - and yet it is a group on which no official poverty statistics are produced.

The key step to reducing the additional risk of poverty faced by children of parents subject to immigration control is to provide them with the same rights to social security and tax credits as are received by British citizens. Providing entitlements through the benefit and tax credit systems, provided by the HMRC and the DWP, is the route to achieving this aim. This would demonstrate that the paramount concern for children is the level of their families' income, not their immigration status. Furthermore, for this group to be brought in line with the population as a whole, the restriction on paid work should be removed, giving these families the same route out of poverty as the rest of the population.

Comprehensive spending review 2007
What it needs to deliver on child poverty

Contents page
Introduction
The Government’s record
What should the spending review deliver?
Provide most for those children at greatest risk of poverty
Work towards better jobs, not just more jobs
Ensure the safety net protects families against poverty
Maximise the contribution of child benefit within family support
Introduce free at the point of delivery good-quality childcare
Make the reduction of child poverty central to the new child support policies
Make education truly free at the point of delivery
Provide benefit entitlement to all UK residents equally, irrespective of immigration status
Reduce the disproportionate burden of taxation on poorer families
Improve the quality of delivery and gear it to the needs of the poorest families
Notes

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