Record £12bn migrant Universal Credit bill as 80 migrants reach Dover

New figures show that households containing migrants received a record £12 billion in Universal Credit last year, up from £7.5 billion in 2023. Two thirds of that total went to claimants from overseas who were not in work. Around one in six Universal Credit payments now go to a household with at least one foreign national.

The payments are available to several groups, including refugees who have been granted asylum, people covered by the EU settlement scheme, and those with indefinite leave to remain. The coverage linked the rise to higher settlement numbers after the period from 2021 to 2024, when about four million people entered Britain, and to the five-year wait before someone can apply for indefinite leave to remain.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has described the previous system as an open borders experiment. She plans to extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five years to ten years. The coverage cited an estimate based on Migration Advisory Committee findings that the lifetime cost to the taxpayer would be £10 billion. Rob Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, said the growth in claims was 59% over two years, that refugee Universal Credit claims had doubled and that claims by non-Europeans with indefinite leave to remain had risen threefold. He called for indefinite leave to remain to be scrapped, arguing that many migrants were not making a fiscal contribution and that only one in five came mainly for work.

The programme also set out what £12 billion could buy, including about 20,000 prison places, 35 reservoirs, six to eight major hospitals, or 313 secondary schools. A panel discussion challenged some of the framing. One contributor said one in six people in the country are foreign born and that skilled workers often contribute more in tax than British-born citizens. The presenter replied that the figures concerned foreign nationals, not all foreign-born residents. The debate focused on pressure on public services and the political risk for the government if it does not reduce the cost.

Separately, an 80-person mega dinghy reached Dover after crossing the Channel. Some people on board were taken off before the vessel entered UK waters and returned to France. Earlier, at least five migrants landed on a Kent beach after crossing in a small dinghy that was not detected by Border Force. The Home Office said it had launched an investigation into how the migrants evaded vessels, surveillance drones and high-tech detection equipment.

A newspaper front page reported that some migrants fled before police arrived at the beach, and that the authorities only learned of the landing after a media producer alerted them. One broadcast segment described tracking a dinghy from near Normandy. It said French authorities guided the boat hundreds of miles down the French coast, with as many as five French government vessels helping it to a beach, before it was guided into British waters and picked up by a British vessel, believed to be the BSC Ranger. The presenter described the operation as an industrialised invasion by the French and by Britain.