Immigration and Asylum Bill (Seventh sitting)

Paul Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Anna Turley)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Dr Murrison. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions to the debate on the clause and amendments in this grouping.

Before moving on to the amendments, I will give some background on what the clause will do. The balance between an individual’s family rights and the public interest in maintaining an effective and controlled immigration system has shifted, and it needs to be reset. Without greater clarity from Parliament on how that balance should be struck, the domestic interpretation of article 8 has expanded beyond what our international obligations require, resulting in inconsistent decision making and high volumes of article 8 grants to people who cannot meet the rules to come or to stay in the UK.

More than half of those who stayed in the UK for family reasons last year did not meet our criteria to be able to stay here, instead relying on their article 8 rights. That undermines public confidence in the immigration system and the rules-based international order. It also comes at a significant cost to the UK taxpayer. As has already been mentioned, the average net lifetime fiscal cost for each first-time grant is £141,000, equating to approximately £4.9 billion for those granted on the basis of article 8 in 2025 alone.

Colleagues have asked about the evidence base behind those figures, so I will give a bit more information about it. We undertook a deep dive cohort analysis to examine a representative sample of 3,252 article 8-related applications, in order to support the policy development of these measures in the Bill. Further details are in the impact assessment. I am afraid that the unpublished internal sample that was referred to will not be made available due to the personal data sensitivities involved, but we will obviously keep under review any further analysis that we would be keen to share with the Committee throughout the course of the Bill, for example other statistics that have been mentioned.

This trend has been driven by high volumes of people who have arrived illegally or overstayed in the UK, at 71% of first-time grants, or by people who are unemployed and are making a minimal economic contribution—76% of first-time grants. It is clear that the system is not functioning fairly and effectively. That is why the British public feel exasperated that such exemptions are being abused to enable people to circumvent the system.

Clause 19 will help to restore a fairer balance between an individual’s right to family life and the public interest in maintaining an effective and controlled immigration system. It will provide a clearer statutory framework that places greater emphasis on compliance and contribution, resulting in more consistent and robust outcomes. These reforms will realign UK legislation with Strasbourg, ensuring that our domestic approach to article 8 is within and, crucially, not beyond our international obligations, as it is now.

[Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)]

Clause 19 introduces some quite fundamental changes, which I fully support, but is the Minister confident that it will still meet the requirements of the European convention on human rights? That is the litmus test.

[Anna Turley]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. That is why the drafting of clause 19 has been very clear and specific, which I will say more about later.

It is important that we comply with our international obligations. We have a proud history of doing so—we helped to devise, draft and create these obligations—but we also have a history of overinterpreting them. It is not a free-for-all, but it is important that we act within the requirements we are obliged to meet and do not go beyond them. That is what the provisions in the Bill seek to achieve.

That includes a clarification that judges must consider the economic impact on the taxpayer of allowing people to remain in the UK, including by considering whether they can support themselves and their family. It is only fair to all those who work hard in this country to be financially independent and to house themselves, and who are not overly reliant on public services, that they do not see others who otherwise have no right to be here imposing avoidable burdens on society and public services.