Labour has been warned that any increase in the number of illegal migrants and asylum seekers entering the UK will send estimated £4.1BN costs soaring even further.
Current estimates by the Institute of Fiscal Studies show a 4.1billion estimated cost for the year 2024/25 but experts admitted the ‘precise scale of the pressures each year are difficult to predict’.
The one clear point in the report is that any increase in the number of illegal migrants and asylum seekers entering the UK will only serve to increase this cost.
More than 7,000 small boat migrants have crossed the Channel since Labour won power – an indication that this crisis is not slowing down. 20,500 migrants have now entered the country this year.
Starmer has outlined his key migration policy of ‘smashing the gangs’ while simultaneously disposing of the Tories’ Rwanda Plan which was viewed as the main deterrent to migrants entering the country.
Instead on a visit to Germany yesterday, Sir Keir said he had no regrets about scrapping the previous Government’s Rwanda deterrent scheme, which he branded a gimmick.
Labour is currently in the process of recruiting an additional 100 investigators for the National Crime Agency.
The new teams will be tasked with focusing on the organised crime groups involved in cross-Channel people smuggling.
Keir Starmer has pledged to smash the gangs
PA
However, security sources have told GB News there has been no slowdown in the number of migrants heading for northern France, with the intention of crossing to the UK.
One source said: “From Dunkirk, through Calais and down to Boulogne, there are still thousands camped out, waiting for their turn to be called forward by the smuggling gangs.
“This is traditionally the busiest time of year, and there’s every sign that trend is continuing as normal.
“The IFS audit of Home Office and HM Treasury spending and budgeting, showed the Home Office has frequently spent far more than it had budgeted for asylum, border, visa and passport operations – and that the budget for 2024/25 is repeating mistakes made under the previous government by submitting figures it “knows to be insufficient”.
The report read: “The major reason for the higher-than-planned spending by the Home Office in recent years is asylum costs. Higher spending partly reflects the costs of a number of special visa, humanitarian protection and resettlement schemes, most notably for Afghanistan and Ukraine.
“But it also reflects a broader upwards trend in both the number of people seeking asylum and the costs per asylum seeker, a trend that was not obvious at the time of the last Spending Review in October 2021.
“In 2023, there were 67,337 asylum applications (for 84,425 people). These numbers are slightly lower than in 2022, but levels remain much higher than in 2019, when there were 35,737 applications (for 45,537 people).
“Importantly, the number of asylum seekers in ‘contingency, initial and other types of accommodation’ (a category that includes hotels) was 16 times higher at the end of March 2024 than at the end of March 2020 – a major contributor to higher costs.”
The IFS report explains how any increases in asylum seeker numbers would lead to further costs.
A Home Office spokesperson told GB News in relation to latest migrant figures continuing to rise: “We all want to see an end to dangerous small boat crossings, which are undermining border security and putting lives at risk.
“The new Government is taking steps to boost our border security, setting up a new Border Security Command which will bring together our intelligence and enforcement agencies, equipped with new counter-terror-style powers and hundreds of personnel stationed in the UK and overseas, to smash the criminal smuggling gangs making millions in profit.”
Source Agencies
