Closed petition Stop benefits and free healthcare for immigrants who have not worked in the UK

Government responded

This response was given on 13 October 2025

Strict controls already exist to meet the petition demands, through the No Recourse to Public Funds rule and Immigration Health Surcharge, and the Immigration White Paper will strengthen them further.

It may be useful to begin this response by explaining to the petitioners the controls that are already in place to prevent individuals who do not have the legal right to settle in the UK from accessing benefits and healthcare that are designed only to be available for those residents who do.

The No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) rule is a standard condition applied to most categories of temporary immigration permission, which prevents those who are subject to immigration control from accessing certain services or benefits. Those who are in the UK without lawful status are also prevented from accessing public funds.

Public funds in this context includes most welfare benefits, including Universal Credit, as well as housing support. For a full list of public funds, see here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-funds--2/public-funds.

The NRPF controls are especially important for migrants who have come to the UK on visas to work or to study. These migrants are generally expected to maintain and support themselves and their families without posing a burden on the UK’s welfare system. Most migrants with NRPF must meet a minimum income threshold, demonstrating that they can support themselves and their dependants financially. For this reason, the majority of temporary migrants are granted leave under the condition that they cannot access public funds.

These restrictions are an important plank of immigration policy designed to ensure that controlled immigration brings real economic benefits to the UK, that public funds are protected for the residents of the UK, and that excessive demands are not made upon the UK’s finite resources.

The Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) ensures that the same principle applies to temporary migrants when it comes to the NHS. The IHS is paid by those individuals as part of their visa applications, at a current rate of up to £1,035 per person annually, based on the Department for Health and Social Care’s analysis of the average annual cost to the NHS of treating IHS payers.

This ensures that – instead of benefiting from free healthcare while they are in the UK – those temporary migrants are instead obliged to pay up front for any costs they may incur. Since its inception in 2015 the IHS has generated over £6.9 billion for the NHS, which is shared between the health administrations in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

As set out above, therefore, when it comes to both the welfare and healthcare systems, there are strict rules to prevent even those individuals who have come to the UK to work from having access to those benefits while they are here on a temporary basis.

The only point at which an individual from overseas can gain access to those benefits is when they are granted permission to settle in the UK, otherwise known as indefinite leave to remain. In the Government’s Immigration White Paper, published on 12 May, the former Home Secretary set out plans to reform the process by which individuals can earn settled status. This stated:

“It has been a long-standing principle that settlement in the UK is a privilege and not a right. Under the current system settlement is primarily qualified for on the basis of length of time spent in the UK alongside a knowledge of life test which is used to verify knowledge of British customs, history, traditions, laws and political system.

“These criteria alone do not reflect our strongly held belief that people should contribute to the economy and society before gaining settled status in our country and they fail to promote integration, which limits the wider benefit from long term migration into the UK and increases pressure on public services.

“We will therefore reform the current rules around settlement through an expansion of the principle behind the Points-Based System, that individuals should earn their right to privileged immigration status in the UK through the long- term contribution they bring to our country.”

As part of these reforms, the former Home Secretary announced that we would increase the standard qualifying period for settlement from five years to ten years, and would set out the full detail of these proposed changes later this year. On 29 September, the Home Secretary announced a proposed new contribution-based settlement model to reduce net migration, boost integration and reduce pressure on public services; with the right to settlement being earned over a standard period of ten years.

More information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-contribution-based-settlement-model-to-reduce-net-migration.

We hope that the petitioners will welcome these changes, as a way of strengthening the existing controls on access to the UK’s welfare and healthcare systems, and we look forward to them engaging with the proposed reforms when they are set out for consultation in the coming months.

Home Office