Foreign nationals are claiming nearly £1 billion in welfare benefits from the British state every month, further undercutting claims of the promised economic panacea by importing millions of migrants.
According to government data from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) obtained by Freedom of Information requests from Conservative MP Neil O’Brien, households with at least one foreign national claimed £941 million this month in Universal Credit benefits, The Telegraph reported.
The welfare scheme, intended to subsidise working-age households with low incomes in Britain, is extended to migrants after they are granted indefinite leave to remain or refugee status.
The FOI revealed that households with a migrant saw their benefits claims more than double over the past four years, with such households only receiving £461 million in March of 2022.
Last year alone saw a nearly 30 per cent rise in payments, jumping from £726 million in March of last year to nearly a billion per month this year.
In total, households with a foreign national accounted for 15.5 per cent of the £6.05 billion Universal Credit payments handed out this month, compared to 14.1 per cent four years ago.
Commenting on the findings, former health minister Neil O’Brien said: “The growth of benefit spending and the rate of migration are both much too fast, and the Government is doing far too little to change either trend.
“Migrants know that if they can make it to the UK, they will be allowed to stay. As long as that is true, we’ll see more and more coming. Our soft-touch welfare state makes this worse.”
The drain of migrants on the nation’s finances has even become increasingly apparent to left-wing Labour MPs, particularly in light of the government’s plans to cut welfare benefits to their constituents while foreign nationals receive billions.
MP for Blackley and Middleton South Graham Stringer said: “Given the state of the country’s finances, everything has to be looked at and reassessed. This expenditure [on foreign claimants] in my opinion is not a priority.
“We have to be absolutely clear on what our priorities are and in my view these people are not a priority. It has to be judged against potential cuts in PIPs [Personal Independence Payments] and the winter fuel allowance and other benefits that may be cut for British citizens.”
Indeed, according to calculations by The Telegraph, just two months of welfare spending on households with migrants could more than cover the entire amount saved by cutting winter fuel payments to British pensioners.
To deal with the negative fiscal ramifications of mass migration, particularly the millions of post-Brexit arrivals dubbed the “Boriswave” in reference to former PM Boris Johnson’s U-turn in office during which he opened the floodgates to mass migration in an exercise of human quantitative easing, Brexit boss Nigel Farage has proposed scrapping “Indefinite Leave to Remain”.
The immigration status, which Boriswave migrants will soon be eligible for, is roughly equivalent to permanent residence, allowing migrants to live, work, and study in the UK without a time limit. Additionally, they are granted the ability to bring family members to the country and to access welfare systems, including Universal Credit.
Instead, Farage’s Reform UK party has suggested that welfare should be limited to British citizens, as well as calling for an end to Indefinite Leave to Remain altogether and replacing it with an American-style five-year work visa.
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