Latest official figures show how migrant crisis costs have rocketed by over 9 times in 5 years
Revealed : The astonishing jump in what the taxpayer is now spending on migrants each year
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024
Readers will scarcely believe the spiralling budget, now out of control, summarised below
Today we present the shocking third part in this exclusive set of four reports prepared by the Facts4EU.Org think-tank exclusively covered by GB News. This report puts some facts behind one of the major underlying causes of the civil unrest which has swept the country in the last two weeks. It illustrates the exponential growth in the UK’s migration crisis, as shown by some of the rocketing costs being imposed on the British people.
Following three weeks of intensive research of official government papers, we reveal how the Home Office’s budget for just one element of the entire cost of the migrant crisis has soared by over nine times in the last five years. Not only that, but this budget has risen by 2.5 times in the last two years alone.
The government’s illegal migrant files
Part II of a Facts4EU.Org special investigation
The scandalous illegal migrant crisis within the UK, in three shocking Facts4EU.Org summary reports
Part I - The UK’s generosity to illegal migrants – what they get once they’re here
Part II - We’re housing almost TWICE AS MANY illegal migrants as you thought
Part III – Total annual cost to taxpayer has soared by 8 TIMES in only 5 YEARS (This report)
Part IV - “Chaotic” – Government’s Independent Chief Migration Inspector slams Home Office and is fired
Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary
Home Office ‘Asylum Support, Resettlement and Accommodation’ budget
In this third part of our ‘Government’s illegal migrant files’ series, Facts4EU.Org addresses the costs to the British people of dealing with the current crisis. The increases shown below are mind-boggling and are all based on an in-depth investigation of government files.
- 2019-2020 : £0.7 Bn
- 2020-2021 : £1.1 Bn
- 2021-2022 : £2.7 Bn
- 2022-2023 : £3.9 Bn
- 2023-2024 : £6.6 Bn
[Sources : Home Office Parliament briefings and annual accounts, accessed Aug 2024.]
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2024 - click to enlarge
What is causing the dramatic increases in the Home Office budget for dealing with migration?
The ASRA budget covers the running of the asylum system as well as delivery of refugee resettlement programmes. Whilst the precise definition has changed over the years, in the latest figures for 2023-2024 the cost of 'tackling illegal migration' shows £6.6bn, indicating an increase of 840%, and of 140% since 2021-22. The Home Office say this dramatic increase is due to:
- The increase in small boat crossings
- The market price for accommodation
- The resettlement grants for Afghanis and Ukrainians
The government’s overall costs of dealing with one part of the migrant crisis
Costs for other areas of asylum expenditure such as the implementation costs for the new Illegal Migration Act are not captured within this estimate line item but have also driven up costs in the Home Office budget. In addition to this there are numerous other expenditure lines in the Home Office’s official report and accounts which we have accessed.
We do have one more definitive fact
The total Home Office budget for 2023/2024 is now just shy of £20 billion (£19.6 bn)
How is it spent and how much goes on dealing with the migration crisis
IMPORTANT : As the Home Office does not break down its expenditure in all its areas of activity according to the specific share for migration costs, we have excluded these from our figures and chart above. This makes it impossible to give Facts4EU readers and GB News readers, viewers and listeners a full total for the costs of dealing with illegal and legal immigration into the UK. In our ‘Observations’ below we present our best estimate based on the hundreds of pages of official government documents we have accessed in recent weeks. Here are some of the line items from the Home Office’s accounts.
- A. Public Safety Group - provides leadership to the public safety system, protecting the public from mainstream and domestic harms.
- B. Homeland Security Group - responsible for the government’s strategy, policy and legislation relating to national security threats and crisis response.
- C. Migration and Borders Group – provides strategic leadership of the migration, borders and citizenship system, setting the policy and legislative framework with end-to-end design and functionality.
- D. Strategic Operations for Illegal Migration – strengthen the oversight of the Department’s work to deliver the Prime Minister’s priority to tackle illegal migration.
- E. Customer Services (Visas & Passport) – incorporates UK Visas, Settlement, Passports, Civil Registration and Citizenship aiming to control migration, deliver world-class customer service and safeguard the vulnerable.
- F. Asylum Support Resettlement & Accommodation (ASRA) - incorporates delivery of the asylum system as well as delivery of refugee resettlement programmes. (This is the budget we have reported on above.)
- G. Border Force is the operational law enforcement arm of the Home Office. It is responsible for immigration, security and prosperity at air, sea, post and rail ports in the United Kingdom and overseas.
- H. Immigration Enforcement – Tackle illegal migration, remove those with no right to be here, and protect the vulnerable.
- I. Corporate & Delivery – supports the business and includes HR, Finance, Commercial, Portfolio, KIMU and Security and Estates.
- J. Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) – Part of Corporate & Delivery, provides support to all business areas including the technological support and development for front line operations, and driving forward the digital agenda.
- K. Science, Technology, Analysis and Research (STAR) – Draws together the whole business, to help inform, deliver and make sense of cross-cutting activity, and to ensure we are pulling together in pursuit of shared objectives.
- L. Strategy - The Strategy Group makes clear Home Office strategy; and uses its experience and expertise to push for the delivery of Home Office outcomes and other priorities. We work across the department and with ministers to do this. The Group comprises Private Office Group (POG), Portfolio and Project Delivery (PPD), and Home Office Transformation and Strategy.
- M. Legal - supports the delivery of the Home Office's aims and objectives by the provision of specified legal services to other parts of the Department.
- N. Communications - leads on the Department’s communication strategy and provides a shared communication service that has been created to maximise resources.
- O. Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs)
More capital expenditure
In addition to the day-to-day revenue costs which have increased sharply, the Home Office has been forced to seek approval for increased capital items totalling £1.4 billion (£1,399.8 million). This is an increase of £468.5 million (50.3%) compared with its initial budget of £931.3 million. The main drivers of the burgeoning costs include:
- £267.5 million additional capital following a resource budget switch
- Of which £135.4 million is to be used for measures to tackle illegal migration
- £130 million to implement the Illegal Migration Act
- £47 million to fund the Illegal Migration Taskforce
- £30 million to tackle money laundering as part of the 2019 Economic Crime Plan
Observations
Would the riots be happening if this problem had been dealt with?
If ever there was a way of illustrating the magnitude of the illegal migrant crisis, perhaps our chart above does this. We have identified a 9-fold increase in just five years in the government’s expenditure in attempting - and failing - to deal with this.
In fact, based on our extensive research over several weeks, we believe the true cost to be much higher. There are many elements not included in the Home Office's ASRA budget but which we believe should be attributed to this area of government expenditure - at least in part. As we have not been able to identify all expenditure relating to migration (given the poor quality information) we preferred to use our lesser figure based on the facts at our disposal. Even that multiple is quite shocking.
For years the British people have been deeply concerned about this matter, and have clearly been ahead of those in the Westminster bubble. A good example was the outcome of the EU Referendum in 2016, when the electorate voted to “take back control of our borders”, amongst other things. Sadly this simply hasn’t happened.
Early last month we published a fact-filled 4-part series on the EU’s inability to secure its borders – also covered by GB News. In this latest 4-part series we have shown the unequivocal official figures detailing the mass, uncontrolled immigration which the EU’s failures (for the most part) have inflicted on the United Kingdom.
Our new government’s response so far has been its plan to reduce the backlog of asylum applications by fast-tracking approvals of 70-90,000 illegal migrants in short order, plus the scrapping of the Rwanda Scheme, plus the cancellation of the Bibby Stockholm barge.
We suggest these are not the best messages to send out to the people smuggling gangs nor their growing number of customers.
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[ Sources: UK Home Office and other departments ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Tues 13 Aug 2024
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