Cost of living crisis: About 1.4 million families unable to get help due to visa restrictions
Britain’s welfare state provides a vital safety net to millions of people, particularly as their incomes are strained by the rising cost of living. But what is it like to live without that security?
That is the reality for an estimated 1.4 million people in the UK whose visa conditions give them no recourse to public funds (NRPF).
On a wintry day in east London, a queue of people stretches a hundred metres or so down the road.
Huddled against the cold, they wait their turn to access a food bank, run by the Newham Community Project, specifically for those with no recourse to public funds.
NRPF is attached to a variety of student, family and work visas, and means the individual cannot access support such as universal credit, child benefit, and some recently announced cost of living support schemes – although others, such as help with energy bills, were made universally available.
The number of people using the service has doubled in the last few months alone.
“Being a mother, I feel very upset because I have to choose from putting the heating on or putting food on the plate,” said one woman in the queue.
“Costs are rising. Everything me and my husband earn goes towards rent and bills. After that, there’s nothing left.”
‘They can’t afford day-to-day expenses’
Chief executive Elyas Ismail said his service is struggling to cope with the demand.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “It’s worse for them because they don’t get any help. They’re on their own. Many of them have two jobs, and even then they’re not able to afford normal day-to-day expenses.”
This month, a report by the Food Foundation and the University of Hertfordshire found that not only were NRPF families struggling to access healthy food, but that they were struggling to access a sufficient amount of any food whatsoever, with “devastating effects on quality of life”.
Read more:
‘I feel like I’m already dead’
UK’s lowest earners still struggling
Cold weather Q&A – Your questions answered
The government defends the system on the basis that it expects migrants to be able to support themselves and their families without relying on benefits.
It says that should anyone face sudden hardship, “strong and important safeguards are in place to ensure the vulnerable can receive support”.
Those safeguards, known as “change of conditions” applications, allow people to apply to access public funds in an emergency.
However, the process is complex, often little understood, and takes time: a luxury that many simply don’t have.
Newham Community Project chief executive Elyas Ismail
‘It makes you feel almost useless’
One young mother spoke to Sky News on condition of anonymity.
She and her two-year-old daughter recently became homeless whilst awaiting a change of conditions decision.
Her daughter is a British citizen, through the father, but he is no longer around, and the mother cannot claim child benefit to support them.
“It makes you feel almost useless, like you can’t provide for your child,” she said.
“You have nowhere to turn to, and you can’t get the help you need right away. Getting a change of condition is not something that happens overnight, and when you need that help now, there’s just no one that can initially help you.”
One organisation that helps people with change of conditions applications is the Unity Project.
Co-founder Caz Hattam says the system needs to change.
“The average amount of time an application takes is six weeks, which is a huge amount of time to be waiting, but we’ve seen applications take months and even over a year to decide.
“It means that people have to go through a very long and gruelling application process before they can access the most basic support.”
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
Earlier this year, the cross-party House of Commons work and pensions committee called for reform, including by reducing waiting times and making child benefit available to all parents of British children.
So far, the government has resisted such calls.
The Home Office said in a statement: “The provision of No Recourse to Public Funds has been upheld by successive governments and maintains that those coming to the UK should do so on a basis that prevents burdens on the taxpayer.”
Footage of the moment 10-year-old Sara Sharif’s alleged killers were detained after police boarded their plane back to the UK has been played in court.
As they are approached by officers, Sara‘s stepmother Beinash Batool is heard saying: “I think you’re looking for us.”
Batool, 30, Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 42, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are accused of carrying out a campaign of abuse against her culminating in her death at her family home in Surrey on 8 August last year.
The defendants, along with five of Sara’s siblings, aged between one and 13, flew to Pakistan the following day.
Sara’s body was found by police in a bunkbed on 10 August after Sharif called police from Pakistan to say he had beaten her “too much” for being “naughty”.
A murder investigation was launched involving agencies including Interpol and the National Crime Agency to locate the defendants.
They returned to the UK on a flight from Dubai to Gatwick Airport on 13 September.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘I beat her up too much’
The clips of officers’ body-worn video shown to the jury on Friday captured the moment police boarded the plane and detained the defendants at 7.42pm, seven minutes after touchdown.
After Batool addresses the officers, Sharif, who had been sitting next to her, is asked to follow them.
The three were then taken off the plane and arrested.
Pic: Surrey Police
A post-mortem examination established Sara had sustained extensive and significant injuries over a sustained period prior to her death.
The jury heard on Friday how concerns were raised by Sara’s school about bruising on her body in June 2022 and March 2023.
Read more:
Stepmother said Sara Sharif’s father beat her up ‘like crazy’, jury told
Sara Sharif ‘never smiled once’, jury told
Several items seized from Sara’s home were also reviewed by the court, including a leather belt which had full DNA samples at both ends for Sara, Sharif, and Malik.
A cricket bat was also found to have Sara’s DNA profile on it, along with the DNA samples of Sharif and Malik.
Neither item had a DNA trace of Batool.
The court also reviewed the defendants’ bank accounts – both joint and separate.
All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
The trial continues.
Six teenagers have been arrested after a 13-year-old girl was found with multiple stab wounds on a roadside near Hull.
Police said she was found around 6.50am on the A63 in Hessle with “life-threatening injuries” including “lacerations to her neck, abdomen, chest and back”.
Four boys and two girls – aged between 14 and 17 – were quickly arrested in a nearby wooded area and are being questioned on suspicion of attempted murder.
Members of the public came to the girl’s aid before emergency services arrived, Humberside Police said.
Detective Superintendent Simon Vickers said they “believe the attackers knew the victim” and the circumstances are still being investigated.
“The girl remains in hospital in critical condition and her family are being supported by officers at this difficult time,” he added.
The boys arrested are aged 14, 15, 16 and 17, and the girls 14 and 15.
Read more from Sky News:
Boy who attacked sleeping students with hammers is named
Man arrested after burglary at Ben Stokes’ home
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Cordons are in place around a wooded area off Ferriby High Road while investigations continue.
Police said they would have an increased presence in the area over the weekend and have asked anyone with information or video to get in touch, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously.
UK
Ex-soldier Daniel Khalife tells court it was a ‘foolish idea’ to have someone with his ‘skillset’ in prison
A former soldier has told a jury his escape from Wandsworth prison to avoid being held with sex offenders and terrorists showed his “skillset”.
Daniel Khalife, 23, who was being held accused of passing secrets to Iran said he was “never a real spy” but planned a fake defection to the state following his arrest after watching American television show Homeland.
He said he wanted to be moved to a high-security unit because he was getting unwanted attention from the sex offenders on the vulnerable prisoners wing and feared a move to Belmarsh prison because, as a British soldier, terrorists wanted to kill him.
Khalife said he first wanted to “make a show” of escaping, acting suspiciously and covering himself in soot from a food delivery lorry on 21 August last year, while he was working in the prison kitchen.
He was spotted and reported to security but was “pretty shocked” when nothing happened so decided to take the “full measure,” he told the jury.
A makeshift sling. Pic: Met Police
Talking about his escape for the first time at his Woolwich Crown Court trial, Khalife told how he fashioned a makeshift sling from kitchen trousers and carabiners used by inmates to keep their possessions safe from rats.
He attached it to the Bidfood lorry on 1 September last year, to see if it would be spotted by officers at Wandsworth or other prisons on the delivery route.
“I put the two carabiners and the makeshift rope underneath the lorry,” he said.
“When I had made the decision to actually leave the prison I was going to do it properly so I tested the security not just in Wandsworth
“Strangely, over the coming days, I could see it but it wasn’t spotted in Wandsworth or any other prison.”
Then on the morning of 6 September, Khalife said he concealed himself underneath the lorry, resting his back on the sling as the lorry was searched.
“They did normal checks around with torches but they didn’t find me. After that, a governor came to the tunnel and said, ‘Have you searched the vehicle?’
“I was facing upwards. There was action around the lorry.”
Daniel Khalife joined the Army aged 16
He said that when the vehicle stopped he “came out underneath the lorry and stayed in the prone position” until the lorry moved off.
Khalife, who joined the Army aged 16 and took up a post with the Royal Signals, based in Beacons barracks, Staffordshire, said he made no attempt to leave the country and had no intention to “run away” from the charges he was facing.
He was arrested three days later on the footpath of the Grand Union Canal in Northolt, west London, after a nationwide manhunt.
Asked why he had not handed himself in after his escape, Khalife said: “I was finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skillset in prison. What use was that to anyone?”
“I accept that I left the prison and didn’t have any permission to do so,” he said. “I accept absolutely that I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
Daniel Khalife
Inspired by Homeland
The court has heard Khalife initiated contact with Iranian intelligence officers after he was told he could not pass developed vetting because his mother was born in Iran.
Khalife told MI5 he wanted to be a “double agent” and he said in court he thought he would be “congratulated” but described his arrest as like a “punch in the face”.
Read more from Sky News:
Teenager who murdered 15-year-old ex-girlfriend jailed for life
Public schoolboy guilty of hammer attack named for first time
Wearing a blue checked shirt and chinos, he said police were “blinded at the prospect of a successful prosecution” but he did not think being in prison would be in “the public interest”.
“I didn’t do anything that harmed our national security. I wanted to put myself in a position where I could help my country,” he said.
“I believed I could continue my work actually located in the state – the state being Iran.”
Khalife said he took inspiration from watching Homeland, starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, in which Americans and terrorists go undercover, on Netflix.
“I had seen one of the characters in the programme had actually falsely defected to a particular country and utilised that position to further the national security interests of that character’s country,” he said.
“The country in question, Iran, thought it was real. She did it to further the interests of her own country.”
Khalife told jurors he is a “patriot”, adding: “I do love my country. All I wanted to do was help. I never wanted to do any harm, I never did do any harm.”
He added: “It is tragic it has come to this and I would do anything to go back to my career.”
Khalife, from Kingston, southwest London, denies a charge of committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state under the Official Secrets Act between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022.
He has also pleaded not guilty to a charge under the Terrorism Act of eliciting information about Armed Forces personnel on 2 August 2021, perpetrating a bomb hoax on or before 2 January 2023 and escaping from prison on 6 September last year.
The trial continues.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports7 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway