Foreign nationals are claiming close to £1 billion (~$1.3 billion) in welfare payments from the British government each month, according to the latest Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures. The data, released in response to Freedom of Information requests from Conservative (Tory) Member of Parliament (MP) Neil O’Brien, shows that households containing at least one foreign national received £941 million in Universal Credit payments this month.
Universal Credit, which supports low-income working-age families, is available to migrants who hold Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR)—roughly equivalent to permanent residency in the U.S.—or refugee status. Over the last four years, the total value of claims from households with a migrant has more than doubled, climbing from £461 million in March 2019 to almost £1 billion now. The figure rose by nearly 30 per cent in the past 12 months alone.
Neil O’Brien criticized the trend, saying: “The growth of benefit spending and the rate of migration are both much too fast, and the Government is doing far too little to change either trend. Migrants know that if they can make it to the UK, they will be allowed to stay. As long as that is true, we’ll see more and more coming. Our soft-touch welfare state makes this worse.”
Reform Party leader Nigel Farage has called for the complete abolition of Indefinite Leave to Remain as a way to reduce the financial strain of large-scale migration. Reform wants to restrict welfare benefits to British citizens only and replace Indefinite Leave to Remain with a five-year work visa system modelled on the American approach to long-term legal immigration.
Hellbound and Down 