Monday, February 14, 2022
The cost of illiberalism
As if it were not bad enough that the UK Government are introducing a raft of measures to put outside of international law and block people fleeing famine, war and severe climate change from seeking asylum here, it turns out that their proposals are going to cost taxpayers a small fortune.
The Guardian reports that a coalition of hundreds of pro-refugee organisations has estimated the astronomical costs of five Home Office policies to block refugees, which are due to become law in a matter of months:
The campaign coalition Together With Refugees, which is made up of about 360 community groups, refugee organisations, trades unions and faith groups, is publishing a report on Monday. It attempts to calculate the cost of policies such as offshoring refugees – with the bill running into the billions. The Home Office is yet to publish this information itself.
Taxpayers could face an extra £2.7bn a year cost to fund the schemes, according to the paper – named A Bill at What Price? It is being published before the first vote in the House of Lords on the government’s controversial nationality and borders bill.
The Home Office dismissed the calculations as “pure speculation”, but the SNP MP Stuart McDonald said the research “shows in stark terms what many MPs have long feared about the huge cost to the taxpayer”.
Luckily, we still have the £350 million a week saved from leaving the EU to spend on the NHS. Oh wait....
The Guardian reports that a coalition of hundreds of pro-refugee organisations has estimated the astronomical costs of five Home Office policies to block refugees, which are due to become law in a matter of months:
The campaign coalition Together With Refugees, which is made up of about 360 community groups, refugee organisations, trades unions and faith groups, is publishing a report on Monday. It attempts to calculate the cost of policies such as offshoring refugees – with the bill running into the billions. The Home Office is yet to publish this information itself.
Taxpayers could face an extra £2.7bn a year cost to fund the schemes, according to the paper – named A Bill at What Price? It is being published before the first vote in the House of Lords on the government’s controversial nationality and borders bill.
The Home Office dismissed the calculations as “pure speculation”, but the SNP MP Stuart McDonald said the research “shows in stark terms what many MPs have long feared about the huge cost to the taxpayer”.
The MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East added: “I and others have continually pressed the government to set out their own assessment of these costs, via the impact assessment they are required to produce for such legislation – and which they have repeatedly promised, but failed, to provide to the public and parliament.”
Using open source data, the report calculated the extra spending that will be needed to pay for five key measures proposed in the bill. These projects include:
Sabir Zazai, a spokesperson for Together With Refugees, said: “This is an astonishing amount of additional public money for the unworkable and cruel proposals in the bill – enough to pay for more than 80,000 NHS nurses a year.Using open source data, the report calculated the extra spending that will be needed to pay for five key measures proposed in the bill. These projects include:
- New large, out-of-town accommodation centres to house up to 8,000 people seeking refugee protection – £717.6m a year.
- An offshore processing system to send people seeking refugee protection to another country to be detained while they wait for a decision on their claim, based on Australian government costings, which the Home Office said it is modelling its plans on – £1.44bn a year.
- Imprisoning people seeking refugee protection who arrive via irregular routes, such as in a small boat across the Channel – £432m a year.
- Removing people seeking refugee protection from the UK to another country if the government said they should claim asylum elsewhere – £117.4m a year.
- Extra processing costs for additional assessments of people allocated a new temporary protection status, who have already passed a rigorous assessment recognising them as a refugee, every two and a half years – £1.5m a year.
Luckily, we still have the £350 million a week saved from leaving the EU to spend on the NHS. Oh wait....
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I propose that we build social housing at a rapid rate for our people and refugees. They can be offered/find work which will pay the rent and have income to enhance their lives and have disposable income to boost our economy. Economic refugees?Yes they will build the economy, increase our standing in the world, make us look better in the world, AGAIN,AS WE WERE PREVIOUSLY! 'Nice' looking camps still smack of concentration camps.By forward thinking refugees will enrich us in all sorts of ways
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