British boy and his Zimbabwean-born mother argued policy denied them access to welfare safety net
A five-year-old boy has won a case against the Home Office as high court judges declared the government’s “no recourse to public funds” (NPRF) policy unlawful for the second time in a year because it drives some families into destitution and breaches the duty to safeguard child welfare. Thousands of children living in poverty are likely to benefit from the ruling.
The British boy and his Zimbabwean-born mother, who cannot be identified, argued that the NRPF policy denied families like theirs access to the welfare safety net. As a result of Thursday’s ruling, children with low-earning migrant parents should be allowed access to essential state support such as housing benefit and universal credit that has previously been denied to them.
