£17bn, the true cost of immigration to the UK
THE cost to Britain of mass immigration is £16.8billion every year, a report claims today.
The figure includes a £1.2billion annual net cost of migrants from Europe, who consume far more in public services and benefits than they pay in taxes. The report, based on figures from the official Labour Force Survey, was seized on by campaigners for Britain to quit the European Union.
They said it demolished claims by George Osborne and the Treasury that EU immigration is beneficial to the nation’s finances. Last year alone there were 800,000 arrivals – or one every 40 seconds – according to figures published last week by the Office for National Statistics.
Campaign group MigrationWatch compared the amount paid in income tax, National Insurance, VAT and other taxes by migrants with the cost of providing them with health, education, and other services.
The research found the gap between the contributions made by migrants from the EEA – which is the EU, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – and the amount consumed by its citizens was £1.2billion last year, or more than £3million a day.
For migrants from outside the EEA, the bill was £15.6billion, which experts say is due to this group including asylum seekers less likely to secure well-paid jobs.
Lord Green of Deddington, chairman of MigrationWatch, said: ‘This report shows that EU migration, taken as a whole, is not making the positive fiscal contribution that has so often been claimed.’ Ex-Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith, who is campaigning for Brexit, said: ‘This report lays bare the wider financial cost [of immigration] to taxpayers, which runs to the billions every year. It’s time to take back control of our borders and implement a fairer immigration policy.’
The £16.8billion relates to migrants who have arrived in Britain from the EU at any date. A second section looked at migrants coming in since 2001 and found the £2.8billion cost of Eastern European arrivals was counter-balanced by migrants from the ‘old’ EU such as France and Germany.