Foreign spouses brought to live in Britain are costing the taxpayer tens of billions over their lifetimes.
A damning report found that foreign-based partners who arrive on a visa will each end up costing the state an average of £109,000 if they stay for the rest of their lives.
And while Britain saw another 1,300 small boat arrivals during the past five days, the audit also concluded that migrants entering through asylum and refugee routes make an ‘unambiguously negative’ contribution to public funds.
New figures in a report from the Government’s official immigration advisers, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), highlighted the immense cost of immigration to the public purse.
The MAC made its calculations by looking at 51,000 partners who arrived in 2022/23, based on the amount a typical migrant on a partner visa contributes in tax and visa fees minus what they cost in welfare handouts, NHS use and care. Extrapolated to the 359,400 foreign partners brought to the UK between 2018 and 2024, the cost to the state would be a staggering £39.2billion.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said last night: ‘This exposes the madness of Keir Starmer‘s open borders. Tens of thousands of family members are being shipped into the UK who often don’t work but do claim benefits. This has to end.’
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK which campaigns for tougher border controls, said: ‘We have long pointed to the huge cost of migration. Its scale and pace is simply making us poorer. The Government must quickly get on top of the problem.’
A visa can be sponsored by a British national who wishes to bring a partner here from overseas, or by a migrant who has settled here long-term. The number of partner visas issued by the Home Office rose from 47,500 in 2019 to 67,100 last year.
New figures in a report from the Government’s official immigration advisers highlighted the immense cost of immigration to the public purse
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said on Wednesday that the new report ‘exposes the madness of Keir Starmer’s open borders’
Last year the Tories increased the amount of money a UK-based sponsor must show – in salary and savings – before they can bring a partner here, from £18,600 to £29,000. But Labour shelved a further increase to £38,700 after Left-wing campaigners dubbed it ‘racist and classist’.
The MAC cited research in the Netherlands which put the ‘lifetime net fiscal impact’ of each asylum seeker at minus £390,000, and a similar study in Australia which estimated minus £198,000.
Its report concluded: ‘The family route is not there to be fiscally positive. The primary purpose of the family route is to let people who love each other live together.
‘Note that many who enter through the asylum route will also have incurred substantial additional costs from being housed in asylum accommodation.’
Latest figures revealed that there were a record 110,051 asylum claims lodged in Britain in the year to September. Last month Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood set out a number of proposed changes to the immigration system, including making migrants wait longer to secure ‘indefinite leave to remain’, which will affect their access to the welfare system.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘This independent report vindicates our approach. The Home Secretary has set out fundamental reforms to ensure those who come here contribute and put in more than they take out.’
