Outrage as Labour admits £5bn cost of migrant families moving to UK
The government has estimated the financial impact of a specific group of migrants allowed to stay in the UK because of human rights laws would be just short of £5billion. Officials calculated the lifetime net fiscal cost of Article 8 - a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rule that protects a person's right to a private and family life - in-country main applicant grantees for 2025. The government gives out grants made on the basis of Article 8 to individuals who get to remain in Britain because it is believed that refusal would result in a "disproportionate interference" to their lives.
In an update on June 26, the government said that the net lifetime fiscal cost for a family and private life grantee (in-country) would be £141,000. It then specified that this would therefore mean 34,400 first-time in-country Article 8 main applicant grantees in 2025 would result in a £4.9billion net cost.
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Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick said: "Our membership of the ECHR is costing the country a fortune. The Tories refused to leave the ECHR, despite myself and others campaigning to do so.
"Only a Reform Government led by Nigel Farage will do what is required to restore sanity to our immigration system."
The government said: "This estimate relates to main applicants only. It does not include the fiscal impact of dependants associated with the cohort. It should therefore not be interpreted as the total fiscal cost of all individuals linked to Article 8 grants in 2025.
"The estimate is subject to significant uncertainty. It relies on long-term assumptions about earnings, employment, settlement, emigration, mortality, public spending and tax receipts. It also depends on allocation assumptions for public goods and taxes and does not capture wider macroeconomic or behavioural effects. Results should therefore be treated as indicative rather than precise estimates of lifetime fiscal impact."
It added: "Within the immigration system, grants made on the basis of Article 8 relate to individuals who are permitted to remain in the UK on the basis that refusal would constitute a disproportionate interference with their private or family life, even where individuals do not meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules, such as Minimum Income and English language."
"The Home Office has used the Migration Advisory Committee lifetime fiscal impact model to estimate the long-term fiscal impact of a range of family migration routes.
"The model estimates the discounted value of taxes paid, less the cost of public services and transfers consumed over an individual’s lifetime.
"It includes direct, indirect and capital taxes, alongside spending on health, education, welfare and wider public services. It excludes visa fee income and Immigration Health Surcharge contributions."