Article 8 asylum rulings will cost UK taxpayers £4.9bn, Home Office analysis finds
Asylum seekers who invoked the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to stay in the UK last year will cost the taxpayer £4.9bn over their lifetimes, Home Office analysis has found.
In the first calculation of its kind, government statisticians estimated that the cost of granting a migrant the chance to remain because of their right to a family life was £141,000 per individual over their lifetime. The calculation took into account the fact that they would pay taxes.
About 34,400 asylum seekers were granted the right to stay in the UK under Article 8, the right to a family life, of the ECHR last year. The total net cost to the taxpayer to fund their healthcare, education, welfare and pensions will be some £4.9bn until they die, according to the Home Office analysis.
The researchers said that even this was an underestimate as it did not account for family members, writing: "It does not include the fiscal impact of dependents associated with the cohort. It should therefore not be interpreted as the total fiscal cost of all individuals linked to Article 8 grants in 2025."
On Tuesday, Labour is due to announce new restrictions on foreign criminals’ and failed asylum seekers’ ability to use Article 8 to block their removal from the UK.
Migrants can currently argue that forcing them to leave would be either unduly harsh because it separated them from their family, or that they would suffer by being uprooted and sent to a country that might be alien to their spouse or children.
The Telegraph has revealed many cases of illegal migrants and foreign criminals exploiting Article 8, including an Albanian criminal who won a reprieve from deportation partly because his son would not eat foreign chicken nuggets.
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s spokesman on the economy, who served as immigration minister under the Tories, said: "The ECHR allows dangerous foreign criminals to stay in our country – and now it’s clear it’s also costing the country a fortune.
"The Tories refused to leave the ECHR, despite myself and others campaigning to do so. Only a Reform government led by Nigel Farage will do what is required to restore sanity to our immigration system."
The £4.9bn net cost is almost equivalent to the £5bn that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, sought to cut from the welfare budget last year. She was forced to abandon the plans in the face of a Labour backbench rebellion.
It is £1.3bn shy of the original £6.2bn cost of building Britain’s two new Royal Navy aircraft carriers and works out as equivalent to a third of Sir Keir Starmer’s defence investment plan which is due to be unveiled on Tuesday and expected to top £14.5bn.
While the £4.9bn estimate is a cost over the entire lifetimes of the asylum seekers, it applies only to one year’s intake of migrants, and a similar calculation could be made for future intakes.
Migrants who have used Article 8 grounds to remain in the UK include foreign criminals who have successfully appealed their deportations, failed asylum seekers facing removal, visa overstayers and migrants who arrived on a family visa but then no longer met the conditions, including having too low an income.
The Home Office used a "fiscal impact model" devised by its Migration Advisory Committee to estimate Article 8 migrants’ net lifetime cost to public services, minus what they will pay in direct income tax and indirect taxes such as VAT.
It calculated they would start in low-paid jobs on a wage of £19,619, with up to a third potentially unemployed. But costs to the taxpayer rise with age. "Migrants are typically more economically active during their working years, while costs associated with healthcare, pensions and wider public services accrue later in life," the report said.
The analysis suggested that the Article 8 migrants would cost the taxpayer more in their lifetimes than a foreign spouse joining a partner in the UK. The bill for a foreign spouse would be £112,000 versus the £141,000 for an Article 8 migrant.
The report warned that its estimate was "subject to significant uncertainty" as it relied on long-term assumptions about earnings, employment, settlement, emigration, mortality, public spending and tax receipts. "Results should therefore be treated as indicative rather than precise estimates of lifetime fiscal impact," it said.
The analysis is likely to be used by ministers to reinforce their proposals to curb migrants’ use of Article 8 rights when appealing against being deported.
The plans would mean only immediate family would count, to prevent the "dubious" connections to distant relatives that have been exploited by some migrants.
Judges will also be required to prioritise public safety over individual Article 8 rights.
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