Ahead of the child poverty strategy’s publication, the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium calls on the government to address poverty experienced by children in the immigration and asylum systems.
The children’s sector has warmly welcomed the lifting of the two-child limit, announced in last week’s budget. Now children’s organisations are waiting to see what the government will do about the almost 40 percent of children in poverty who have no access to social security whatsoever.
The Institute for Public Policy Research has estimated that in 2023 to 2024, 4.45 million children were living in poverty, of whom almost 40 per cent, or 1.75 million, were in families where both parents were born abroad.
The End Child Poverty Coalition, in its eight tests for the child poverty strategy, states:
Targeted action must be taken to combat child poverty for certain groups most at risk, including disabled children, children from minoritised ethnic backgrounds, children in single parent families and larger families, and refugee and migrant children.
The Home Office is not represented on the Child Poverty Taskforce, set up in summer 2024. However, the Government has previously committed to considering all children in the UK in developing its child poverty strategy.
The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium (RMCC) is concerned that the changes announced on 17 November 2025 in ‘Restoring Order and Control’ and on 20 November 2025 in ‘A Fairer Pathway to Settlement’ run counter to the government’s commitment to reduce poverty for all children living in the UK. This is because they risk leaving thousands more children to grow up with no recourse to public funds for significant stretches of their childhood, meaning they cannot access the mainstream systems of support and social security designed to protect children.
Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz, Head of Advocacy at Praxis, an RMCC member, said:
We urge the government to ensure that the opportunity represented by the child poverty strategy results in meaningful change for migrant children living in poverty. Failure to act on the drivers of poverty embedded in immigration and asylum policy will leave a significant proportion of the UK’s poorest children behind.
Anita Hurrell, Head of Policy and Practice Change at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, which co-chairs the consortium, said:
The government cannot meaningfully tackle child poverty if it overlooks the hundreds of thousands of children growing up in the UK but cut off from mainstream systems of support. These children are part of our communities and they must not be forgotten as the government outlines how it plans to cut child poverty.
Notes
- The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium is a group of over 100 organisations working collaboratively to ensure that the rights and needs of refugee and migrant children are promoted, respected and met in accordance with the relevant domestic, regional and international standards.
- The Institute for Public Policy Research has said: ‘Behind these numbers, families are doing their best to provide for their children, working, contributing and raising children who call Britain their home. Put simply. If we are serious about tackling child poverty, we cannot ignore these children.’
- The End Child Poverty Coalition eight tests for the child poverty strategy are available here.
- Previously the Government stated: ‘In developing a child poverty strategy, the child poverty taskforce is considering all children across the United Kingdom. The taskforce recognises the distinct challenges faced by migrant children.’ Please see written answer, 3 December 2024.
- Barnardo’s, a member of the Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, is calling for an exemption for families with children under 18 from the ‘No recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) condition.
