Taxpayer invoice for accommodations and asylum assist hits £5.4 billion
The taxpayer will shell out £5.4 billion on migrant accommodations and different asylum assist this 12 months – a staggering £15 million a day.
Rocketing prices have pressured the Home Office to safe an additional £4 billion from the Treasury to cowl an enormous overspend on asylum lodging.
Across all areas of immigration and asylum, the Home Office’s overspend will hit £5.9 billion within the 2023-24 monetary 12 months, official papers confirmed.
An evaluation of the figures by the Labour Party mentioned it amounted to an ‘eye-watering’ £4.3 billion overspend on asylum assist throughout the 12 months.
There are at present greater than 50,000 asylum seekers being housed full-board in accommodations throughout the nation.
Across all areas of immigration and asylum, the Home Office’s overspend will hit £5.9 billion within the 2023-24 monetary 12 months, official papers confirmed (File Image)
The everlasting secretary mentioned the £4 billion additional allotted to asylum assist ‘was not an unanticipated spend however a results of file ranges of small-boat arrivals because the Spending Review 2021’ (File Image)
The £5.4 billion additionally covers asylum seekers dwelling in self-catering lodging, who obtain £49.18 every week for every particular person of their family to cowl meals, clothes and different prices.
In a letter to the Commons dwelling affairs committee, revealed yesterday, Home Office mandarin Sir Matthew Rycroft mentioned asylum was ‘a risky space to funds’.
The everlasting secretary mentioned the £4 billion additional allotted to asylum assist ‘was not an unanticipated spend however a results of file ranges of small-boat arrivals because the Spending Review 2021’.
In addition, the Home Office was given an additional £1.2 billion to implement the Illegal Migration Act and Rishi Sunak’s ten-point plan to fight unlawful immigration, which he set out in July 2022. The division additionally secured an additional £500 million for Afghan resettlement schemes. Shadow dwelling secretary Yvette Cooper mentioned: ‘This lays naked the whole chaos the Tories have created within the asylum system.
‘They are spending billions on resort rooms due to their failure to clear the backlog of asylum purposes. Despite guarantees of motion from the Prime Minister, they haven’t delivered and now the Home Secretary has been pressured to go to the Chancellor with a begging bowl as a result of he is bust his funds by over £5 billion.’
Immigration minister Michael Tomlinson mentioned: ‘Labour haven’t any plan to cease the boats and would take us again to sq. one, that means limitless and uncontrolled immigration. Sir Keir Starmer’s method to immigration would imply an additional 250,000 migrants a 12 months.’
The Government’s plan to take away ‘irregular’ migrants to Rwanda – to assert asylum there fairly than right here – was declared illegal by the Supreme Court in November.
Ministers imagine the prospect of being eliminated to the African nation will deter migrants from crossing the Channel. Mr Sunak mentioned ’emergency laws’ unveiled in December will overcome the Supreme Court’s authorized objections, however the Safety of Rwanda Bill is dealing with robust opposition within the House of Lords.
