The British taxpayer is funding over £10 billion in direct welfare subsidies to migrants, who now account for one in six pounds sterling spent on universal credit, a report has found.
According to internal government data seen by London’s Daily Telegraph, £10.1 billion of the annual £61.2 billion spent on the universal credit scheme for those out of work, on low incomes, or those struggling with living costs was paid to foreigners living in Britain last year.
The figures, released under Freedom of Information Act requests, mean that one sixth of all direct welfare spending was given to foreigners or 16.5 per cent of the Universal Credit budget.
According to the broadsheet, this represented a significant increase over previous years, with £6.3 billion being spent on foreigners in 2022 and £7.9 billion in 2023.
The actual cost of the mass migration agenda is not even fully demonstrated by the figures; however, given that the data set does not include migrants who have been awarded citizenship, or indeed second-generation migrants.
The Universal Credit scheme also represents only one avenue through which foreigners can benefit from state subsidies, with the money spent on education and healthcare for migrants being counted separately.
It also does not account for state funds spent on housing alleged asylum seekers, many of whom are put up in hotels and provided with food and other accommodation giveaways at taxpayer expense.
The Universal Credit scheme is also limited to those who have received ‘indefinite leave to remain’, which would have required them to have lived in the UK for at least five years.
Thus, the data would not include the millions of recent “Boriswave” migrants who arrived in Britain following former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s immigration liberalisations, which occurred following Brexit despite Johnson and his party having previously vowed to cut immigration.
According to the Centre for Policy Studies, the lifetime cost of the migrants who arrived following January of 2021 could amount to a net fiscal loss of £234 billion during their lifetimes, or around £8,200 for every UK household. However, the think tank noted that the actual cost could be “considerably more” depending on the number of migrants granted residency.
To grapple with the looming financial hit, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said that if his party wins the next election, Reform UK would replace indefinite leave to remain with an American-style five-year work visa and vowed that migrants would not benefit from welfare payments meant for the British public.
Despite Prime Minsiter Sir Keir Starmer previously recognising that mass migration has failed to deliver upon the promises of economic prosperity and that it has served to degrade social cohesion, he later accused Farage of suggesting such policies to limit the looming financial impact of the large number of recent arrival migrants.
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