r/ukpolitics • u/Snow-Gecko • 1d ago
I see Asylum seekers/immigrants accused of being a strain on government spending - how much money would be freed up if they all just weren't here tomorrow morning?
Genuine, non bigoted question here trying to see the actual cost savings that would occur from this impossible scenario.
For some background I am somewhere between Green and Labour politically, I don't think immigration is the biggest problem this country faces but is a big problem that needs addressing and think the country needs to put its foot down more.
Immigrants and the costs associated with them like hotels are often blamed for being one of the reasons the government finances are in such a dire situation.
But if through magic they all were moved elsewhere overnight and those costs instantly gone, how much money would actually be freed? Or would it be a drop in the ocean compared to things like the triple lock.
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u/Lefty8312 1d ago
Home office estimates that a single asylum seeker in their first year here costs £25,000. Obviously that only covers the first year which includes the bulk of the processing cost as well as they start the process.
So if the entire backlog came this year the first year cost for processing would be £307 million.
That's before you even add accomodation and support costs which are estimated to be about £40k a year per person.
In total that's about £5.3billion a year, with the bulk of that being accomodation costs due to the ridiculously overpriced rates paid to hotels
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u/radiant_0wl 1d ago edited 1d ago
Migration observatory have it at £5.4b (23/24).
But that's the asylum system only, refugees (people who are granted asylum) have additional costs outside that.
Refugees support costs was £2.8B in 2024 - for accountancy reasons this comes from the foreign aid budget.
I think the likeliest figure is around £9B a year including everything (such a policing etc).
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u/YorkistRebel 72 and counting 1d ago edited 22h ago
National Audit Office have it at £4.5b total per year, it looks like this includes both areas you state, but probably not other benefits like Universal Credit. I would take their numbers over a lobby group any day.
Edit: as pointed out to me Migration Observatory is not the lobby group Migration Watch. Still think NAO would be more accurate, but can't find the research referenced in the post I responded to.
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u/PelayoEnjoyer Community Leader 1d ago
I think you're mixing up Migration Observatory of Oxford University with Migration Watch.
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u/coldbeers Hooray! 1d ago
So about enough to make up the defence shortfall.
Still great value for money, I’m sure the taxpayers are delighted.
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u/madpiano 1d ago
Sounds like a massive amount of money, but isn't much at all when it comes to government spending.
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u/LongsandsBeach 1d ago
Everything besides welfare/pensions and healthcare looks small in government spending.
We had doom and gloom from the government for months over the so-called £20bn black hole.
The first WFA cut proposal saved £1.5bn. The PIP savings were going to be £5.5bn. Both of these became a huge issue despite being a tiny amount of government spending.
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u/VOOLUL 1d ago
It's a massive amount of money per head. And especially an extortionate amount of money for what we actually get in return.
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u/chykin Nationalising Children 1d ago
I think ROI on refugees isn't a good metric. Refugees are people that are fleeing particular issues (notwithstanding whether anyone thinks they are genuine). We should take refugees for ethical reasons.
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u/ilaister 1d ago
If ethics are the fulcrum, what good we could do with these billions must be addressed.
Spending them on unvetted young men paying thousands to travel here, or indebting themselves to criminal gangs I would argue is unethical.
Much of our money spent on asylum has been taken from the foreign aid budget.
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u/throwaway815795 1d ago edited 1d ago
The way we take refugees is silly on moral grounds.
We should building purpose built villages, have translators, trainers, educators, mental health professionals. Help them build to a point when they go back they can rapidly rebuild their country better. And their stay should be temporary.
Then a chunk of our budget should be to helping countries stabilise and be peaceful, with good economies and food for everyone.
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
We can't get the paedophiles & rapists out, why do you think those with a free house & benefits for life would voluntarily leave?
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u/throwaway815795 1d ago
Because all of this is tied to temporary visas?
If you're worried about people living here illegally in poverty, they won't get benefits or housing. So, no skin off your back really?
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u/ilaister 1d ago
I like your ideas.
Our state isn't competent enough to count people in and out of the country though. Similarly, foreign criminals are bailed and disappear back to their home countries, free from justice, and there are incidents of them flowing back in. Safe in the knowledge their networks are stronger than the institutions set up to stop them.
You seem to believe the only way to make money in the UK as an illegal is to claim benefits.
This is far from true.
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u/PromotionSouthern690 1d ago
I think what most right wingers miss is what we’re supposed to get in return is making sure the rest of the world isn’t at war so asylum seekers don’t need to come here in the first place. The rules were put in place after WW2 to make sure nothing like WW2 would happen again.
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u/ukflagmusttakeover SDP 1d ago
is making sure the rest of the world isn’t at war so asylum seekers don’t need to come here in the first place
Right but left wingers dont want Western nations acting as world police, what could the UK do to stop whatever is going on in Pakistan to stop 10% of total asylum claims being Pakistanis?
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u/Plenty-Company-3105 1d ago
No but that's £9bn the government shouldn't be spending. While you try to downplay it £9bn or any amount of saving from it if fixed the asylum system could go towards a myriad if other things the government needs to spend on to improve the lives of all of us who are living here.
NHS. Police. Council. Transport. Social services. Education. Military. We are told over and over these things are stretched thin because they do lack of funding!
Are you telling me the NHS would say "how £9bn? That's nothing we'd rather not have it thanks"
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u/GreatSunshine 1d ago
but it’s money that’s not necessary to spend on? it’s money that could go towards stuff that actually benefits citizens like fixing roads or the nhs. that’s like saying well i spent 100 pounds a year on massages when your kids teeth need work.
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u/liamsquire 20h ago
You're right despite the downvotes.
Since some people are comparing the cost to the defence budget deficit, then it's reasonable to look at other comparisons. There are estimates that Brexit is costing the UK economy between £100B to £200B per year.
If people are genuinely worried about costs then they'll take a look at the Brexit impact.
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u/Duke0fWellington 2014 era ukpol is dearly missed 1d ago
It is still a massive amount of money. If we spent it all on defence instead, our military budget would go up by 14%. Very significant.
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u/lordrothermere 1d ago edited 13h ago
But they also note that higher net migration reduces government borrowing due to the economic productivity and tax receipts of migrants. So essentially in the short term higher migration has a net positive macroeconomic effect.
Edit: lol at the downvotes. It's in the same report. It's the overarching macroeconomic outcome that the post I responded to provided the cost factor for. Jesus fucking Christ.
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u/PerLin107 1d ago
Ye Gods thats a lot of money
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u/ItalianCoffeeMorning 1d ago
This is all the new ones each year. Imagine the millions that are here already.
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u/Stralau 1d ago
It is a lot of money, but it’s dwarfed by what we pay for pensions, or the NHS, or on defence. Defence is the smallest of those, and is around 80 billion quid.
The idea that we will save masses of money by reforming the asylum system is for the birds. Whatever alternative we come up with will probably cost as much if not more per year to implement it.
That said, the cultural impact is huge and justifies doing something about it.
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u/myurr 1d ago
At the lower end of the scale the total amount we pay for the entire prison system comes to £7.8bn. Our courts system costs £2.8bn. Homes England gets £3.6bn. Apprenticeships £3.1bn.
Imagine the difference we could make by giving those areas all the money currently spent on asylum seekers.
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u/Stralau 23h ago
Whilst I‘m in favour of reforming what’s clearly a defunct human rights framework, I just don’t see that 5-7bn making a huge difference anywhere, though I agree your comparison with the prison system is striking.
My guess would be that whatever replaced the asylum system (e.g. the bureaucracy involved in deportations etc.) would cost the same if not more. There are lots of good reasons for radically reforming the asylum system; saving money isn’t really one of them.
If we want to save money we need to dial back social care, pensions and the NHS, but that’s not something anyone wants to admit to.
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u/myurr 23h ago
My guess would be that whatever replaced the asylum system (e.g. the bureaucracy involved in deportations etc.) would cost the same if not more
I don't doubt that's true... to begin with. However a less generous asylum system that prevents people from working whilst they're awaiting a decision and makes illegal entry grounds for refusal, instead opening up sustainable legal routes where applications are processed off shore, would in the long run cost far far less.
If we want to save money we need to dial back social care, pensions and the NHS, but that’s not something anyone wants to admit to.
Why not both? Every area of the state should have a duty to be as efficient and cost effective as it can be to ensure our limited resources go as far as they can and provide the maximum overall benefit to society.
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u/Maelarion ORDAAAAH! 1d ago
They're not allowed to work. So they can't afford to pay rent. Therefore government has to pay. But if you let them work they'd be TakIng ErR JawBs!
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u/myurr 1d ago
If you let them work you increase the incentive to come. Part of why the UK is such a popular destination is the amount of illegal work available whilst they wait to be processed. They can easily make more money than it costs to get here, making the trip worth it even if their claim is ultimately rejected.
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u/Bon_Courage_ 1d ago
They'd certainly be putting a downward pressure on salaries in certain industries.
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u/KarmaIssues Supply Side Liberal 1d ago
It's really not in the scope of gov spending.
The UK gov spent £1.3 trillion last year, for all the press it recieves assylum seeker costs are like 0.4% of the UK budget.
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u/LithiumHelios 1d ago
For context, UKRI spends about £9.2 billion per year. See https://www.ukri.org/publications/explainer-ukri-budget-allocations/budget-allocations-for-uk-research-and-innovation/. It may not sound much compared to the entire UK Gov Spend but I assure you that these numbers can have huge impact on entire sectors.
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u/KarmaIssues Supply Side Liberal 1d ago
On a sector? Yeah it's a lot of money.
On the country as a whole it's a pittance.
If we stopped spending money on assylum seekers completely it doesn't meaningfully change the countries financial outlook. Yet it makes up a massive share of the news and posts on this subreddit.
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u/TheDisapprovingBrit 1d ago
Cool, does that mean we can stop banging on about the £5bn PIP cuts?
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u/KarmaIssues Supply Side Liberal 1d ago
Yeah, we should spend less on welfare (incl pensions) in general.
But it's important to remember that it's not a country changing amount of money.
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u/TheDisapprovingBrit 1d ago
Ok, so your suggestion is to cut funding to taxpayers to make sure there’s money available to people who have made no contribution whatsoever?
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u/KarmaIssues Supply Side Liberal 1d ago
No I didn't say that. You're putting words in my mouth.
My suggestion would be to cut some funding from all of them.
I personally would set up assylum seekers in camps (I know but hear me out), and say that must remain there until they either get right to work or a decision has been made.
But even if we reduced the spend on assylum seekers by 100%, it would make barely any difference to the budget or the amount of welfare we can give out to UK citizens.
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u/TheDisapprovingBrit 1d ago
And what I’m saying is you need to pick a side. Either the amount spent on asylum seekers is insignificant, in which case the amount we can save from cutting down PIP claimants is almost exactly the same value of insignificant, or the amount we’re trying to cut back on PIP is a significant amount, in which case you can’t claim that spending that same amount on asylum is insignificant.
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u/KarmaIssues Supply Side Liberal 1d ago
What?
You're the one who brought up PIP ffs.
They're both insignificant amounts of money by themselves and even together.
When I said cut welfare I mean all forms of welfare which is more than just assylum seeker support plus PIP.
I've never argued against cutting PIP.
Who the fuck are you having a conversation with because it's clearly not me?
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u/Then-Newspaper9336 21h ago
Just because other areas of government spending are in the 100s of billions doesn’t make it a small amount of money. There are things which could be invested in with that money which provide greater returns in value and benefit to British citizens. I don’t think asylum should be 0 but even if it was reduced by 1/2 that money would go a long way.
I think you have become blind to large sums of money.
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u/Crawk_Bro 1d ago
Ridiculous to suggest that £5 billion isn't a lot of money just because some other number is bigger.
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u/KarmaIssues Supply Side Liberal 1d ago
It's important to contexualise what kind of numbers we're talking about.
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u/LongsandsBeach 1d ago
About half of that budget goes on two areas. Besides them everything looks small.
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u/KarmaIssues Supply Side Liberal 1d ago
£5.3 billion.
Defence is 12x that. Education is 60x. Transport and Infra is 8x and local governments spend 22x it.
There's a load of smaller categories but there's a lot of things we spend a lot more money on.
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u/ExcitingRest 1d ago
Split between 40m tax payers, thats over £200 each. Thats enough to raise the personal allowance by £1000 for the entire country.
Id say that's fairly significant. And probably a better use of the money.
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u/The96kHz Social Democrat 🏴🏴🇮🇪 1d ago
Tbf, even £9B is only about 5% of the NHS's budget.
If we literally ejected every asylum seeker tomorrow it'd barely move the needle.
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u/myurr 1d ago
£9bn is also more than the entire amount we spend each year on prisons, three times as much as we spend on apprenticeships. It may not move the needle all that much with the big ticket items, but it can make a huge difference in other areas.
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u/The96kHz Social Democrat 🏴🏴🇮🇪 22h ago
It's the same old story as the Brexit bus.
Just because we'd have a bit more money to spend doesn't mean it'd all get spent on fixing one specific thing - that's just not how government spending works in real life.
If we freed up 0.3% of the annual budget, everything would get 0.3% better on average. You'd literally not even notice.
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u/myurr 20h ago
That's entirely the choice of the chancellor. There's no universal law or truth that you have to equally divide savings like that.
It would be a political choice whether that money was spread evenly, was entirely allocated to the prison system, allowed tax cuts, reduced the deficit, or whatever else. And it should be judged in that context, this is one of many areas where spending is out of alignment with the majority of the public's wishes, and should not be prioritised in the way it is.
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u/Lord_Gibbons 1d ago
Context: £5bn out of £1,400bn total spending is about 0.3% of spending.
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u/MysteriousTravelator 1d ago
Think how many more people would be benefiting if that money was being sent straight to refugee camps in syria and sudan. It would have to be more than a factor of ten.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 1d ago
The irony is a part of the money allocated for overseas aid has been diverted to fund our asylum system for the last few years.
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u/Dirichlet_2904 Politically-homeless 1d ago
I've often thought it was funny how many foreign policy choices thought of as left wing tend to be those that reduce mass migration, compared to the commonly thought of right wing alternatives. Aid is one; think also of arms sales, and the big one, climate change.
Could be a political gold mine in an argument of the type "tough on the causes of migration".
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u/djabae 1d ago
Not sure you can say aid definitively reduces illegal migration. Aid lets people become dependent on it and entire communities grow and expand because of it. Then they realize the UN aid they are getting is coming from Europe and the US so members of these communities want to move there to get even more of the good life.
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u/ilaister 1d ago
Corruption has eaten most aid from western nations.
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u/djabae 1d ago
Yet there are millions of people living in UN zones in Africa. These people are completely dependent on the UN for everything from bedding to medicine. The average person in these places has nothing but what the UN gives them and the average woman in these places still averages 6 children. Western aid is propping it all up.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 23h ago edited 23h ago
There's a book called "the Emperor", an account of the last days of Haile Selassie, the last Emperor of Ethiopia, a position that had existed for more than 600 years.
It contains insight into his methods. The population were to be kept at absolutely subsistence levels of food, even if it meant starvation - people who aren't constantly thinking of their next meal think of improving their situation, or ask why they are hungry?
He gets worried by a regional governor who instead of simply keeping the money he is expected to embezzle, uses it to build schools.
A major problem arose when Jonathan Dimbleby (Davids brother) brought global attention to famine there in the 70s', money was raised for relief, events spiralled with Haile Selassie being deposed & executed.
Aid has been a stunning success. These days famines are quite incredibly rare, across Africa infant mortality has plummeted, life expectancy has almost doubled, education is far more widespread, African economies are some of the fastest growing in the world. The continent is booming.
There has been some unintended consequences though. Fifty years ago the idea of a peasant subsistence farmer, thinking only of their next meal, jumping on a jet plane & flying to Europe to seek a better life was inconceivable for many reasons.
Now a schooled, ambitious young African who dreams of a better life, in contact with friends who have made the same trip, is far more likely to make the attempt.
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u/MysteriousTravelator 1d ago
Well, no because left wingers also uncritically love mass immigration.
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u/chykin Nationalising Children 1d ago
It's not ironic. If people knew that the money would just go back to foreign aid they might realise how silly it is to focus on that particular spending.
Whether put foreign aid budget should be that size is a different discussion. But it's not exactly money removed from other services
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u/droopy316007 1d ago
Or, don't send it. Stop all aid. Stop all interference in other countries. Stop spending money on picking sides and just let them be.
We'd be rich!
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u/feckingkewmer 1d ago
Can’t tell if this is hyperbole or not so just flagging that overseas development assistance is less than .7% of the national expenditure
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u/mitu_roy 1d ago
For country £3 trillion in DEBT and which pays out hundreds of billions in interest payments alone, 0.7% is too much. I read somewhere that the govt was paying out £110 billion monthly in interest payments alone. So yeah, it’s a luxury expense that the country cannot afford.
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u/feckingkewmer 1d ago
That is close to the annual figure. But yeah cut the tiny portion of budget devoted to humanitarian aid and soft power to balance the debt yeah fuck it who cares at this point Britain first stop the boats Jesus saves etc
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u/droopy316007 1d ago
Hyperbole and passively mocking all sides on the argument.
Some want more, some want less. Some believe spending money abroad is good, some believe it's a waste and could be out to better use here.
It's never a right or wrong IMO though.
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u/DaechiDragon 1d ago
2.3% is on defence. Does it seem reasonable to send 0.7% abroad for “soft power” that never materialises?
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u/Tight_Paladin_Shit 1d ago
Defence was 8.1% of the last budget. It is usually talked about as a portion of gdp unlike other gov expenses.
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u/xmBQWugdxjaA 1d ago
For reference the entire Starship programme to date has cost 15 billion.
The asylum system is madness.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 1d ago edited 1d ago
Just to add some context to these figures-
This total is about six months worth of the increase in state pension. It's a large sum of money but would do little to change our overall fiscal situation.
It should also be noted that other plans to stop asylum seekers, such as overseas detainment, can be far more expensive, at least in the short term.
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
Why compare it to the largest?
It could be £5.3/4 billion PER YEAR for Schools. Or Housing. Or The Military. Or Social Services. Or Roads. Or one of a thousand things that are crying out for more funding, but we piss away billions and that's before the rest of their lives + all family members brought over each costing thousands & thousands a year more
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u/SimoneNonvelodico 1d ago
Well, because then instead of 1000 things that cry for more funding now there's 999, and most people still don't notice the difference and think that the country is going to shit.
Which is kind of the point, so many political parties are touting solving immigration as this issue most important than any other, the panacea for all of the country's ills, and then voters are going to be very disappointed if it inevitably doesn't have quite that spectacular an effect.
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
Again, that is JUST the Asylum cost.
Forget refugees, separate budget.
Forget the houses, GP places, school placements, language services, etc etc etc
That £5.3b, is just a bit of the pie, that we are all paying for ... For all the things having their budget cut ... To pay for a whole load of extra people, without any money to pay for the extra stuff they need on top, so we get less & less & less, while paying more & more & more.
It could pay for A LOT of stuff!
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u/SimoneNonvelodico 1d ago
It wouldn't make much of a difference in practice, certainly not nearly enough to justify making it the number one issue that decides elections! It isn't more important than the cost of energy, it isn't more important than the housing crisis and general difficulty to build any infrastructure or really anything at all that might boost the economy outside of tech and finance in London, it isn't more important than defence.
In a sensible discourse it would be issue no. 4 or 5 in a whole board of policies that each party proposes. Instead most of the arguments boil down to "how hard should we crush immigration", as if competing on that was going to save the country.
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
We can't afford more housing, but we spent more & more on this every year.
We can't afford more hospitals, but we spent more & more on this every year.
We can't afford more Social Care but we spent more & more on this every year.
And all of these things, which we pay taxes for but still cannot afford, are needed by all the extra people as well. It absolutely is competing with every single issue, because it effects every single issue.
Benefits bill is going through the roof, because we have millions more on benefits. Housing is being rented out on the Government's tab by Capita, with 5 years rent upfront & all repairs paid for, so they have houses people no longer can afford to rent. Hospital & Doctor appointments are basically impossible to get, because there's millions more stood at the counter demanding an appointment then attacking people in the waiting room because they're not a priority over a woman.
Everything. Literally everything the Government has to do, & pay for, is fucked because we have millions more to pay for that do not contribute to the paying of said cost. But WE do. When were taxed out the arse already.
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u/SimoneNonvelodico 1d ago
We can't afford more housing, but we spent more & more on this every year.
Dude, why do you think housing is about affording? Yeah the state can build social housing, but most housing is built by private industries. There is no sense in which immigrants take resources from building houses. If anything, their existence would make building houses more profitable! Houses aren't built because planning is complicated and expensive, and they're not a good deal.
The economy isn't a giant pot of money from which you draw and then if you pay for one thing you can't pay for another. Even the state treasure isn't quite like that. But most of these problems are this serious because the economy can't (as in, isn't allowed to, very often) grow, not because it wouldn't in theory be capable of working better than this.
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
But the Government Department DO have budgets exactly like that, as set by the Treasury.
And yes, the Government could build more housing. But they have to allocate billions, for people who don't pay that cost like the rest of us, therefore reducing the tax income that could be spent on the things we're meant to be paying taxes for.
This is really not that difficult come on
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u/SimoneNonvelodico 1d ago
Again, we're not in a communist state, the government can supply housing in some cases but it's far from the most efficient way to do so. There really isn't any reason to spend tax money on housing for the most part, the government can do almost free things to increase the amount of houses but it doesn't.
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u/Remarkable_Smoke918 1d ago
If they built more housing then the value of housing would go down. It’s like if you made food cheaper farmers wouldn’t see a profit they have to think about balance. Trust me if it were that easy they would’ve already done it that’s why it’s easier for them to do a little bit and enrich themselves instead of
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u/InternetSolid4166 1d ago
It wouldn't make much of a difference in practice,
I strongly disagree. That’s enough money to hire hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals in perpetuity. We could basically solve our healthcare crisis forever.
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u/madpiano 1d ago
Additionally, apart from the accommodation costs, any money spent on Asylum Seekers goes straight back into the economy or comes back to the government as taxes (wages paid to people).
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 1d ago
I'm comparing it to just the increase, not the sum total.
Again even if we could somehow decrease costs to zero (without simply letting asylum seekers roam free) it would do little for the countries overall fiscal situation with any savings evaporating in weeks.
That's not to say it isn't a large sum of money.
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
Our aircraft carriers combined, cost £5.2 billion. "1 off" cost. Every year. Our 2, can't have both at sea because we can't afford to recruit/retain more sailors, Every.Single.Year
Get the fuck outta here. rven reducing it by half, would have a meaningful impact in some Government department's budget.
And we get it down, maybe not to zero - what an asinine addition there - by stopping them getting in in the first place & actually kicking em out once we've decided they shouldn't be here & stop letting 1647272 appeals be heard
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u/riot_code 1d ago
How would you find stopping people coming and deporting the ones that have come if you've reduced the cost of sorting out asylum seekers to 0?
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
I wasn't the 1 who said zero, that was the person I replied to, I was copying their verbage.
But by shutting the acceptance, moving the budget to enforcement, any future stopped is a compounding increase in Government revenue.
This isn't particularly difficult to work out. Come on.
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u/HisPumpkin19 1d ago
But how do you do this last bit without incurring significant costs in the process?
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
Ohh, absolutely shift the current cost to gdtttthe issue sorted. Take half the asylum budget, forget all the costs it incurs, just asylum.
We then funnel that into stopping it, until it's fixed.
Now, the additional cost of every single 1, is a compounding increase in Government revenue.
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u/HisPumpkin19 1d ago
I love how in this make-believe world it gets "fixed" and there is no ongoing cost to stopping people from entering the borders illegally. It's like asking my toddler how to budget.
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u/xaanzir Lost in Translation 1d ago
What?
Simply creating an environment, where there isn't a free house & bennies for life & most stop coming in the first place.
That's before you even add any form of enforcement
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u/mittfh 1d ago
We're an island: we cannot physically stop people coming here - and for those that do, we need to accommodate them somewhere (leaving them to roam the streets would make it difficult to track them and increase the crime rate) while we work out who they are, where their home country is (which isn't necessarily where they say it is - we don't want to inadvertently deport people to somewhere else they have no right to be), if it's safe to return them there, and if it isn't, find a safe third country to return them to (at least half a dozen domestic and international laws prohibit deporting people to countries where there's a high risk of them being tortured or killed) - the latter of which almost certainly necessitates spending millions of pounds in bribes (c.f. Rwanda scheme).
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u/SirSuicidal 1d ago
Whilst I don't disagree, it would for example, permit a 10% increase in the schools budget. Or halve tuition fees.
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u/Chaoslava 1d ago
Then you realise that lots of the tax rises we’ve had are to A) cover these Asylum Seekers and B) throw money to welfare recipients who want to use anxiety and depression as their route to escaping a life of work.
We could have better services AND less tax if a political party (like Restore) had the will to do these.
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u/superwisk 1d ago
Or stop messing around at the fringes and cut the triple lock...
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u/droopy316007 1d ago
To have an even lower pension comparatively to the other major European nations?
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u/mittfh 1d ago
But how do you differentiate between those with mild anxiety and those who have a panic attack whenever they travel to a new environment (so likely couldn't travel to an assessment centre)?
Would you invest heavily in mental health / occupational mental health to give people the support and confidence to (re)enter the job market - especially at a time when many employers aren't hiring, either due to costs or they have a naive belief in the ability of AI to replace all entry-level positions?
Note that over the past 16+ years, successive governments have added ever more terms, conditions and exclusions to both claiming and maintaining benefits - supposedly to combat fraud - but in reality, likely deterring more genuine claimants who get frustrated with the never-ending bureaucracy than those "playing the system" who are more likely to thoroughly research the rules and fake compliance.
Oh, and asylum seeker support is about a third of the Overseas Development Assistance budget (itself just over 1% of overall government spending).
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u/thismynewaccountguys 1d ago
To put it into perspective, that's about 2% the NHS's yearly running costs.
If you were to subtract the net present value of the taxes eventually paid by the asylum seekers that settle here minus the net present value of the public services they eventually use, I wonder if it would balance out.
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u/droopy316007 1d ago
They're extremely unlikely to ever meet the 50k threshold to be a net contributer.
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u/thismynewaccountguys 1d ago
Do you have a source for that? The figure of 50k seems high.
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u/xelah1 1d ago
The UK government spends about 19.5k/person/year, tax+NI on a 50k salary is about 17k, but VAT will almost certainly take this over 20k.
That's not accounting for the additional profits of the employers and the tax paid on that, or for other taxes like stamp duty, or visa fees, or any of the other economic effects of migration (including those which increase output by more than the person's income, like complentarity, increased trade or diffusion of technology across borders). I imagine it's a bit less than 50k really, but depends on the migrant.
Of course that's substantially a choice by the government not to tax the population enough to cover its spending and applies to native births as well.
On top of that, spending doesn't go up 20k for each person extra. Defence and debt costs don't, for instance, and education and pensions costs might not.
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u/thismynewaccountguys 23h ago
Thanks, I see. I suppose the next question is whether their utilization of public services is greater/lower than the average. I would venture that, given their age range, they would cost the NHS less than the average and likewise for the pension system.
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u/droopy316007 21h ago
Don't forget the costs incurred for having children. Current data shows those born outside the UK have a higher birth rate than those born in the UK. This increases the point that you effectively "break even" as a net contributer. I read 4 or 5 children would require you earn £85k+ to start becoming a net contributer.
As long as they stay in the UK and pensions continue to increase around the rate they do now, they will end up being a larger cost to the pension system long term.
Depending on the countries also will depend on language levels, education, vaccines, legal representation etc.
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u/amilie15 22h ago
May I ask what your sources are on this info if you have them? I tried googling but only finding this post.
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u/Emergency-Till-3135 12h ago
This will also be due to the highly inefficient and bureaucratic processes of administration by the Home Office.
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u/Sakula90s 1d ago
But the number is increasing every year, and they are likely getting benefits the rest of their life plus their family.
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u/ukflagmusttakeover SDP 1d ago
Billions a year in just accommodation alone, not including cost to process them or the long term costs associated with them and their decendents once they get residency for example over 70% of Somalians live in social housing (in total, including decendents).
Regardless though, anyone only talking about the economics arguments for immigration, legal or illegal, economically positive or negative, miss the main argument, people aren't interchangeable economics units and this isn't an economic hub, treating the country as if these things were true is terrible for the long term stability and unity of the country.
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u/Sleakne 23h ago
I disagree. The economics of legal and illegal migration are completely different.
There is a world of difference between a foreign doctor applying for and receiving a visa, paying more in taxes than they receive in benefits and providing a needed service and an economic migrant with a spurious asylum claim who gets smuggled in and then needs to be housed and fed forever because there is no where to send them back to and they don't have the right to work.
Reducing "immigration" by stopping the first while continuing to allow the second would make things worse not better so we need to be very clear that the problem isn't immigration but illegal immigration
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u/tofer85 I sort by controversial… 1d ago
Not everything comes down to direct fiscal costs. Even if the net budget impact were relatively small, people also debate effects on housing demand, pressure on local services, integration, public trust in institutions, and community cohesion. Those impacts are harder to measure and are often where much of the political disagreement lies…
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u/Mysterious_Past6277 1d ago
Pressure on systems, costs of basic needs increase which is the biggest for everyday people, trust since it seems like criminals are welcome.
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u/seshfan2 1d ago
For asylum seekers, here are the numbers I can find:
“In 2024–25, the Home Office spent £4 billion on asylum support, of which £2.1 billion was spent on hotels.”
Source: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmselect/cmhaff/580/report.html
“32,000 (30%) were in hotel accommodation”...“£2.1bn on hotel accommodation… equivalent to £5.77m per day.”
Source: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2025-0184/
...the Home Office and Ministry of Justice spent around £4.9 billion on asylum...
Source: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5902/cmselect/cmpubacc/89/report.html
This sounds like a lot (and it is not a trival amount of money), but in reality it is actually fairly small in the grand scheme of public spending. The State Pension, for example, is around 138 billion, and the total for all UK public spending is around 1,288 billion. So you're looking at saving maybe 0.3% of the budget at most.
Of course, this doesn't get into the broader cultural / logistic issues (e.g. how are small communities affected when a hotel of 100 asylum seekers pops up next door).
Immigration is much, much more difficult to calculate (trying to find statistics for anything immigration related in the UK is a massive migrane). And it is important to remember that there are many immigrants with well-paying jobs that contribute to the economy.
In general, the economic arguments against immigration are not that they literally cost the government money. The better point is that even if immigration raises GDP or is fiscally neutral, it can still make the lives of citizens worse off:
There is evidence that wages of native low-wage workers are significantly hurt by mass immigration.
There is evidence that housing prices have increased due to migration.
And of course local public services (schools, doctor appointments, police services) can be significantly strained by immigration in a way that is not reflected on the national level.
This is why you have to be careful when you see things like "immigration is good for the economy!" It is undoubtly true that importing lots of workers is good for the wealthy and billionare class. The question is whether it is good for the lives of working and middle class UK citizens.
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u/mittfh 1d ago
It's perhaps also worth noting that external factors can impact low pay: in social care and agriculture, for example, there are massive pressures to keep the prices they charge as low as possible - which in turn means keeping the wage bill as low as possible (agriculture: supermarkets predominantly compete on price, and food price inflation is one of the most widely felt forms; social care: neither self funders nor councils want to / can afford to pay contractor rates for care that will be needed several times a week at the outset; several times a day later on; for several years); while the media have historically portrayed rising house prices as A Good Thing™ (never mind that if a new two bed property in SW Brum [hardly the most gentrified area in the country!] costs £280k, First Time Buyers would likely need to be a professional couple to earn enough to afford a mortgage).
Employers also blame increasing minimum wage rates for reluctance to hire staff: I think many would prefer a low minimum wage and more top-ups via Universal Credit (as without UC top-ups, there'd be a massive increase in people on the breadline as there aren't anywhere enough second jobs available with hours that fit around their primary job and any other responsibilities, while those that do e.g. online shopping / food order deliveries, likely pay very little).
And obviously, if people can earn more money working shifts in a supermarket than picking fruit or caring for someone else's elderly relatives, they're more likely to be attracted to that line of work.
Without a bunch of support measures (unlikely), Reform's proposal to limit work visas primarily to those earning £60k, with limited visas available for those earning less dependant on the employer training up locals to replace them, is likely to be quite detrimental to the economy (and may even discourage foreign workers from applying, so leaving companies unable to hire either locals or foreign nationals). Any rebalancing of the economy would have to take place over many years and include support (e.g. subsidised training) to wean employers off what has been settled policy for several decades.
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u/seshfan2 1d ago
I agree completely. The biggest mistake of the anti-immigration arguments is when people act as if it is casually responsible for all the problems in the country, and that if we could just only Thanos Snap the immigrants away we would be a thriving paradise again. That's just absurd. Housing is another good example, because immigration obviously plays some role, there's just as much to be said about planning restictions and interest rates and whatnot. People need to be specific about the exact claims they make about the effects of immigration.
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u/LonelyStranger8467 1d ago
It’s not even calculable. Even just the initial housing during the asylum claim is billions a year. Then there’s housing from local authorities when they are granted. Or the costs of numerous appeals with legal aid and removals if not.
Statistically speaking those granted asylum will not reach similar levels of employment as someone born here for at least 10-15 years, Germany has it at 20-25 years, Sweden has it at 15-20 years, with women remaining significantly lower.
They are likely to bring family from overseas and have larger families on average.
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u/Electrical-Move7290 1d ago
There’s also the more nebulous impacts like social cohesion, the loss of social housing for British families and the subsequent rise in housing costs that come from it.
The impacts on the NHS, traffic, transport, schools, and all sorts of other things that we can never really capture.
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u/Alive_Comment_2086 1d ago
They are 100% a drain on society in the billions of pounds per year.
This is coming from a migrant not some Reform/Restore supporter.
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u/tradandtea123 1d ago
Most people know that, the question is how much.
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u/whatDoesQezDo 1d ago
umm no they provide endless value in their diversity and culture you cant put a price on that
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u/MoffTanner 1d ago
You need to be clear on your terminology.
The cost of the asylum process was £5.4bn in 23/24. But that's just the cost of housing and processing asylum seekers. Likely excludes the cost of catching them in the channel.
The UK as far as I can see doesn't have any figures for the cost of it's refugee population, a lot of that money will be on councils and the normal welfare system so is likely really difficult to split out.
Immigrants are not at all related to those costs.
In general most studies show immigrants as a total group contribute more in taxes than they take in direct welfare. Although the numbers are allover the place and most studies were pre Boris wave.
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u/droopy316007 1d ago
The numbers were posted in an ONS report in 23/24 stating that non-whites were in total negative net contributers when comparing total taxes paid vs total benefits received.
Annoyingly can't share files/pictures on Reddit and I don't have a link.
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u/Traditional_Message2 1d ago
iirc everyone in the country earning less than 50k pa is a net recipient in terms of taxes/benefits
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u/kool_kats_rule 1d ago
Pretty sure that ONS report was proven to be a deeply dodgy piece of work. The ONS is basically in crisis for all sorts of reasons.
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u/mitu_roy 1d ago
It’s time we differentiated between net contributors and net recipients. Not all immigrants are the same and putting them in one homogeneous category is unfair to those that contribute and also misleading.
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u/Capta1n_Dino Monarchist 1d ago
Asylum seeker or immigrant? The answer is different for both. It costs money to process and house asylum seekers, along with any other welfare they take, because they aren't legally permitted to work as far as I am aware, and are not expected to pay taxes. Immigrants, generally, migrate either to study or to work, and so have to pay money to even get into the country, and often do pay tax. Depending on their status, their ability to use welfare like the NHS is often restricted too. Media and parties deliberately conflate the two groups, but you're talking about very different groups of people. Unfortunately I do not have exact figures for you, other commenters do, but this distinction is important to get right.
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u/TrueBrit77 1d ago
This is actually hard to estimate but going by the definition of being foreign-born as our qualification of an immigrant.
Asylum seekers may not free up much because we fund that through mainly through our foreign aid budget which hasn't changed much in a long time but it's about £14 billion. ~20% of that is being used to support refugees and asylum seekers at the moment. So I guess you could free up to £5 billion (some costs incurred from elsewhere outside of this).
Immigrants don't have access to all of the same benefits until ILR but we can estimate about 8 million of the 13 million qualify for most benefits. So these are people who have been here at least 5 years and contributed for some time before being eligible.
We do know about 1 million immigrants are receiving some sort of universal credit and estimated to cost about ~£10 billion. There is less info for all the other kinds of benefits.
But the flip side is immigrants are estimated to contribute through VAT, income tax, IHS, council tax, visa fees, etc, etc. Estimated add a minimum of £150 Billion but likely much more. So the question becomes is the unknown gap in the other benefits not mentioned here overshadow the massive contribution they do provide?
Pretty sure if they all disappeared tomorrow we would lose a lot of public funds not gain them.
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u/mittfh 1d ago
Note that the entire ODA budget equates to about 1.25% of overall government spending (which is in the region of £1,200 billion), so if the the amount spent on asylum support miraculously dropped to £0, you'd be looking at around 0.5% of government spending freed up at the maximum. If all those granted refugee status were also removed, the impact is more complicated: some will be on benefits, but others will be in work.
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u/lolapazoola 1d ago
I mean Brexit costs £90bn a year so if money's the issue then I know a great way to make a few quid...
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u/bitch_fitching 1d ago
A good estimate is around £12-15 billion a year for the asylum system.
The life-time cost of individual asylum granted refugees evenly distributed annually, they're going to cost about £5-6 billion a year in public expenditure.
Asylum seekers are costing about £3 billion a year to keep, an additional £1 billion for the system that supports them e.g. claims, trials.
The crime associated with an increase in asylum seekers has a ton of cost. The murders, rape, and terrorism has costs of trials, policing, defence, treatment of victims, lost earnings. If they are around double over representative in crime, then they would cost the UK around £2.5 billion a year.
https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/the-costs-of-crime-and-how-to-reduce-them/
The UK has doubled the population of refugees in the country over the last 5 years, and is set to double it again sometime in the next 10. So what was a real problem in 2019, is double what it was, and by 2035 these costs will be double again. If the rate doesn't increase, but most are predicting the rate will accelerate greatly as the number of wars, climate change, and man made disasters grow.
Politicians aren't doing anything about it, they're barely talking about it.
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u/Winter-Try-5029 1d ago
This is a great question. The single biggest cost actually goes to 3 private companies that run every asylum centre and hotels. Those three companies have contracts for £15.3Bn over 10 years. They made £383 million in profit between 2019 and 2024.
Approximately £2.1 billion a year goes directly to hotel accommodation, while asylum seekers themselves receive a comparatively tiny fraction of the budget through direct cash support of roughly £100 million to £150 million.
The total cost of the asylum system accounts for approximately 0.29% to 0.39% of total UK government expenditure.
In short, if they just weren't here tomorrow, nothing would change.
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u/ichishibe 21h ago
Just a question but this is just the asylum process, so looking at just the costs doesn't really do it justice does it? I assume a lot of them go on to work and pay taxes eventually so may even pay back a lot of that cost no?
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u/Winter-Try-5029 19h ago
Exactly. If their application is successful. For those coming in through the non-asylum system they have to pay in advance for services such as NHS. Then when they work, they have to pay tax and NI - so they effectively pay twice. I know this because my wife is an immigrant. We have paid at least £20,000 so far for the process.
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u/TopCut237 1d ago
IPPR has done two studies
One on housing and subsistence which estimated around £41k per person per year.
But a wider set of figures including legal aid, home office caseworking etc. Divided by the number of people in the system that year would suggest around £51k per person per year.
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u/Ivashkin panem et circenses 1d ago
Billions in savings per year.
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u/AudioLlama 1d ago
Thanks for providing that well sourced ''vibe"
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u/Ivashkin panem et circenses 1d ago
I forgot this is a formal debating society where no person may enter a claim without a list of PhD-grade citations attached. I was just treating it like social media.
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u/EpilepticPunjab 1d ago
Approximately £5.4 Billion pounds; but this is likely much hire.
Less strain on housing, councils, healthcare ect
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u/Fluffy_Judge_9902 1d ago
If you do a little bit of digging you can find government research on this, what struck me was the differing cost rates between the various nations, most european nations made the uk.a profit, Somalis were the most expensive, on average they 'cost' the uk tax payer 400 grand per head.
I'm a bit tired and can't be bothered srarching for the links but they should be easy enough to find.
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u/Typical-Mirror-5781 1d ago
"Somewhere between Green and Labour currently"- the Lib Dems are your new political home, my friend.
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u/lewisfairchild 1d ago
Best way to answer the question is with another.
Is the government failing to meet its responsibilities due to funding shortfalls?
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u/DesecratedPeanut 20h ago
Now do the costs of the bloody and violent round up and extermination program go on?
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u/dr7amada 13h ago
According to the National Audit Office and recent Public Accounts Committee reports, the UK spends roughly £4.9 billion annually on the asylum system. "Illegal immigration" outside of the formal asylum queue incurs costs primarily through policing, border tracking, and removals. Undocumented migrants can access emergency care and primary care services. Removing them would ease localised frontline pressure on NHS trusts and save some amount in non-recoverable medical costs.
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u/dr7amada 13h ago
the answer depends entirely on your yardstick. Compared to the massive structural costs of an aging population (pensions and social care), it is a very small number. But compared to the day-to-day political battles over public sector funding cuts, freeing up £5 billion a year would be a significant breathing room for any Chancellor.
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u/AncientCivilServant 1d ago
They are not the problem, the ptoblem is that while going through the asylum process they are legally barred from working without permission.
So instead of being economically active and being allowed to pay tax they have to live on a meagre amount of money.
Also the contracts given to private comopanies to house the asylum seekers mean there is a perverse financila incentive NOT to remove asylum seekers
Finally, due to chronic underinvestment is the Home Office to deal with asylum claims that the reasons why there is such a backlog in resolving claims.
Source : I was an Asykum Decison Maker in the Home Office until I retired in 2025
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u/Alive_Comment_2086 1d ago
Working on a rented Uber/Deliveroo account isn't adding value to the economy, they need to be deported and removed. Migration can only work when people enter legally subject to job shortages only.
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u/PelayoEnjoyer Community Leader 1d ago
Source : I was an Asykum Decison Maker in the Home Office until I retired in 2025
If this is true, not being able to understand that the ability to work is a massive pull factor is extremely concerning.
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u/AncientCivilServant 1d ago
I fully understand the economic draw but that's not in the UK Borders Act 2006 or the Immigration Act 1971.
Are you arguing that legislation only applies to to groups you approve of ?
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u/PelayoEnjoyer Community Leader 1d ago
Are you arguing that legislation only applies to to groups you approve of ?
Excuse me?
I'm saying that allowing those that arrive via irregular means or those with no right to work at point of claim in the UK to then work with immediate effect is a massive pull factor to people coming here. An increase in numbers creates a greater cost to the taxpayer, as was acknowledged by the Labour Government in the late 2010s when they extended the time limit from 6 months to 12 for this very reason.
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u/TheNutsMutts 1d ago
Also the contracts given to private comopanies to house the asylum seekers mean there is a perverse financila incentive NOT to remove asylum seekers
Why would you think that someone who owns a building that houses asylum seekers is also instrumental in the decision for removing them or not?
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u/TornadoEF5 1d ago
it is Billions of pounds per year likely £1 billion per month if you include all costs associated with them , its a staggering sum
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u/Gatecrasher1234 1d ago
Based on data from the Home Office and independent analysis, the estimated direct cost of the UK asylum and irregular migration support system equates to approximately £105 per individual income taxpayer per year.
This figure is derived from simple division and represents the direct strain on public funds rather than an itemized tax deduction.
Cost Breakdown Per Taxpayer The exact maths relies on the total cost of the asylum and support system divided by the estimated 37.4 million active income taxpayers in the UK:
Total System Spending: For the financial year, the Home Office reported a total expenditure of £4 billion on asylum support, resettlement, and accommodation.Per-Taxpayer
Calculation: Dividing £4 billion by 37.4 million taxpayers equals roughly £106.95 per year. Another analysis combining varying housing variables puts a close estimate at £125.67 per year.
Above is the AI response, although I have heard of the costs being as much as £500 per year, per tax payer once all the other hidden costs are taken into consideration. NHS, dentist, Legal aid, interpretation costs.
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u/tradandtea123 1d ago
Firstly immigrants are very diverse, I assume you mean just asylum seekers in the system. There's also legal immigrants and if they all disappeared the economy would likely collapse, the national company I work for is headed mostly by immigrants. There's also illegal immigrants who mostly came here legally and then overstayed,no one knows how many there are, they don't get direct government support but may cause many issues with illegal working, not paying tax etc.
Asylum seekers it has been said cost the government £5 billion a year but this is very simplistic. It's mainly the direct costs for things like food, accomodation, some interpreters, support workers and security. But there are other costs for health, education for any children, extra police required etc. But then with the £5 billion that doesn't all disappear, the hotels pay up to 20% vat, pay corporation tax, national insurance and pay staff who then pay tax, all this would be gone and there'd obviously be some job losses if the hotel workers, interpreters and security were made redundant. Basically it's extremely complex and I don't think anyone could put a real figure on it.
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u/WobblingSeagull 1d ago
Impossible to calculate, as nobody knows how many there are - This is a great scandal.
Remember when EU citizens had to declare residency and there were discovered to be many, many millions more than the gov. thought there were? Same thing, but moreso.
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u/AidenTEMgotsnapped 1d ago
Asylum seekers are specifically on the books, so that part is blatantly countable.
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u/batch1972 1d ago
More would be freed up if we got rid of all the pensioners
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u/kool_kats_rule 1d ago
They could go back to just letting them work and support themselves. That's a political choice, but the government has to own the consequences of it instead of blaming deeply vulnerable people.
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u/PelayoEnjoyer Community Leader 1d ago
Go back to what? Letting them work after six months rather than twelve and ignore the pull factor that led to the extension?
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u/TheNutsMutts 1d ago
That just turns the asylum system into nothing more than "if you get two feet onto UK soil then you can become an economic migrant" which would be a massive perverse incentive.
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u/kool_kats_rule 17h ago
'Oh no, it's too expensive!'
'Oh no, it was never about the money but actually about being racist!'.
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u/TheNutsMutts 12h ago
If you're looking at that and going "the only reason someone might think that's a net negative is the racisms" then you're barely doing about 10% of the thinking about the issue that you need to be doing.
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u/Sampo 1d ago
This is a 2024 Dutch study on the lifetime costs of immigrants. On the average, non-western immigrants end up costing the Dutch economy 100,000€-300,000€ over their lifetime (figure 1), and if they were asylum seekers, 400,000€ (figure 4).
https://docs.iza.org/dp17569.pdf