British taxpayers are spending £62million every year on housing and handouts for asylum seekers whose claims have already been rejected – but stayed in the UK anyway. They are eligible for financial help if they are in danger of becoming destitute, meaning they cannot secure adequate accommodation or meet their essential living needs.
Reform MP Lee Anderson said the figures exposed the chaos and incompetence in the nation’s immigration system. He said: “This is an insult to the taxpayer and a clear example of everything wrong with our immigration system, political class, and incompetent Home Office. A Reform government will ensure that any asylum seeker whose claim has been rejected is deported without delay.
“We will not continue to live in a country where Britons are treated as second-class citizens, taken advantage of and forced to fund the lives of those who have no right to be here.”
Home Office statistics show there are 4,447 people across the country receiving what is known as Section 4 support, which is paid to people who have had their asylum claim refused, as well as their dependents.
This includes 348 people in hotels and 4,026 given what the Home Office calls “dispersal” accommodation, such as a flat, a house or a room in a shared property.
Most are eligible for £49.18 per week for food, clothing and toiletries, while those in accommodation with meals included receive £9.95 per week.
Hotel accommodation for asylum seekers costs £144.98 per night on average, according to the Home Office, while the average cost of dispersal accommodation is £23.25 per person every night.
It means the minimum cost of supporting failed asylum seekers is more than £1.2million each week, or at least £62.9million every year.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Government is furious about the number of illegal migrants in this country and in hotels.
“That is why we will close every single asylum hotel. We have already cut the number of hotels in half and will move illegal migrants into military bases.
“We have removed 35,000 illegal migrants off British soil and will scale up removals.”
The Government says it is under a legal obligation to support asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, but argues it is stepping up removals of people with no right to be in the UK.
Ministers hope to use AI to speed up processing the asylum backlog.
Last week, Home Office officials gave a sex offender £500 to convince him to return to his native Ethiopia. Hadush Kebatu had been living in an Epping hotel at taxpayers’ expense when he committed sexual assault against a 14-year-old girl, sparking a wave of protests.
Kebatu was then freed by mistake from HMP Chelmsford, triggering a two-day manhunt.
Once in back custody, arrangements were made to send him home. But the offender threatened to kick up a fuss and disrupt his deportation flight, until Home Office officials gave him £500 to calm down.
