Minister Robert Jenrick was interviewed this morning (4th June 2023) by Laura Kuenssberg. The Conservative government wants to deter ‘illegal’ immigration, defined as people arriving without visas on boats crossing the Channel. The Home Office says the cost of carrying out their proposed policy, in the ‘Illegal Migration’ [sic] Bill, of detaining and deporting these ‘migrants’ will be between £3bn and £6bn per year.

Some Assumptions

Let’s assume that the current backlog of asylum applications is c.150,000 and average time waiting for decision is 2 years.

Let’s assume that each asylum seeker is put up in a hotel, pending decision on granting asylum or deportation, for one year at an overall cost, including legal and admin charges, of £100 per day. ⅔ of asylum seekers have been and will continue to be granted asylum. So say these 100,000 were processed more efficiently – say by allowing them to claim asylum while en route – you could save £10,000,000 per year.

Do we really want to break international law?

But the government definition of ‘illegal’ migration conflicts with the definitions in the Refugee Convention 1950 of asylum seekers and the lack of any obligation in the Convention to seek asylum in any particular country (say, ‘the first safe country they enter’; this is not a Convention requirement), so it is highly likely that there will be successful legal challenges to the operation of the proposed Bill.

The figures don’t add up – immigration is good for the economy

The government’s declared intention to reduce net migration ‘because of the pressure on public services’ is economically illiterate, because immigrants contribute on average 10% more in taxes than indigenous people (according to the Refugee Council and Resolution Foundation), so the real problem is that public services have been run down and are not sufficient for the needs of the population as a whole. Austerity, not immigration, is to blame for deficiencies in public services.

Other things we could spend £6bn on

TUC has estimated that it would cost £2bn to give all public service workers including NHS and train staff the pay rises currently being sought.

The Storm Shadow missiles being supplied by our government to the Ukraine cost £2m each. The UK has a stock of 1,000 missiles – cost £2bn.

Would it not be better to make it easier for asylum seekers, as defined in the Refugee Convention, to gain asylum and start to become taxpayers here, thereby saving all or most of the £3-6bn cost of implementing the Illegal Migration Bill, and to spend the saving on rebuilding our public services and continuing to provide support for the Ukraine?

Hugh Bryant