A DECADE of hostile environment policies could harm Britain’s recovery from the pandemic as hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants face barriers to the vaccine, public health campaigners warn.
More than 10 million people have already received at least one dose of the vaccine in Britain, but campaigners claim that the country’s population of undocumented migrants estimated at between 800,000 and one million risks being left out of the programme.
The government has specified that everyone in Britain is entitled to receive the Covid-19 vaccination free of charge regardless of their immigration status.
However public health and migrant rights groups warn this message isn’t cutting through deep-rooted fears of the NHS instilled by nearly a decade of hostile environment policies in healthcare and the “majority” of undocumented migrants are unlikely to come forward.
An investigation conducted by VICE World News has revealed that British MPs have used a UK immigration hotline to report violations 151 times during the coronavirus pandemic. The investigation has raised questions over whether MPs are reporting their own constituents. VICE World News uncovered the data from a freedom of information request.
The figures have sparked fears that MPs are sharing information about their constituents who have sought help over their UK immigration status. Charities have warned that vulnerable constituents may avoid seeking help for fear of being detained.
UK immigration issues are featured on parliament’s website as something that constituents can confide in MPs about. However, the Home Office has a dedicated website page and phone number where ‘immigration tip-offs’ can be made.
Points and immigration
Author: Sade Sawyers
In the 2016 Brexit referendum, the very much anti-migration “Leave” side of debate talked a lot about “taking back control of our borders” and controlling the influx of migrants “taking our jobs”.
The new “points-based” immigration system is supposed to deliver on those promises and, as Priti Patel puts it, “only allow the real talent” into Britain.
How will the points be awarded?
To qualify for a work visa the applicant looking to migrate to the UK first needs 50 points from being able to speak English (10 points) and having a job offer from an approved employer for a “skilled job” (40 points). Then you need another 20 points. One way to get them is for the job to bring in over £25,600 a year.
HEALTHY asylum-seekers are still being forced to sleep in dormitories with people who have tested positive for Covid-19 at a virus-hit military camp in Kent, MPs heard today.
Home affairs committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper said that she was “truly shocked” by evidence revealing that there are still no provisions for refugees to self-isolate at Napier Barracks despite a massive coronavirus outbreak.
About 300 men are still being held at the site in Folkestone where more than 120 people tested positive last week and where a fire broke out on Friday, leaving residents without power, hot water or food over the weekend.
Giving evidence to the committee today, Jill O’Leary, lead GP at the Helen Bamber Foundation, said: “There are still confirmed Covid-positive residents who are sharing dormitories who have not tested positive for Covid-19.
The claimant single mother, who received universal credit, successfully challenged the ‘proof of payment rule’ pursuant to the Universal Credit Regulations 2013, SI 2013/376, the effect of which was that recipients had to find ways of paying childcare costs from their own funds, and only be reimbursed several weeks afterwards. The claimant wished to work, but she was unable to do so without help to cover childcare charges. The Administrative Court held that the proof of payment rule discriminated indirectly against women in the enjoyment of their rights under art 8 of, and/or art 1 of the First Protocol to, the European Convention on Human Rights. Further, the court held that insofar as the proof of payment rule lacked a reasonable foundation and was, therefore, not objectively justified, it was incompatible art 14 of the Convention, amounting to unlawful indirect discrimination on the ground of sex. The court also ruled that the maintenance of the proof of payment rule, insofar