Record numbers of migrants living in Britain are not working, costing taxpayers an estimated £8 billion, a report warns today.
Official figures show that 1,689,000 non-UK nationals are either unemployed or classed as economically inactive because they are not looking for a job.
The figure for the second quarter of 2024 surpasses the previous high of 1,676,000 recorded at the start of the year, and the 1,628,000 from early in 2012, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics data.
It covers people aged between 16 and 64 who were born overseas and have the right to live in the UK, but excludes students and asylum-seekers.
Researchers at the Centre for Migration Control think-tank put the cost to taxpayers of record levels of migrant worklessness at as much as £8.5 billion a year.
They calculate that the total amount of public money attributed to workless migrants – including health, education, transport and housing costs, as well as welfare – could be as high as £20.3 billion.
It will put pressure on the Government to further crack down on legal migration, after measures by the previous Tory administration to stop foreign students and care workers bringing family members with them to the UK led to a 35 per cent drop in visa applications in the first half of this year.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has paused the Conservatives’ plan to increase the income needed to bring a foreign partner to the UK from £29,000 to £38,700, and her main new policy is to reduce employers’ reliance on overseas workers by improving the skills of homegrown staff.
Robert Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, said last night: ‘For all the talk of a fiscal ‘black hole’, the Labour Government seem to be missing the glaringly obvious fact that mass migration is causing economic pandemonium.
‘There is no reason for us to continue handing out so many long-term visas when we are currently having to bail out over a million migrants who are already in Britain but not working. This is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme, and we will only compound the problem if we do not change course soon.’
Mr Bates added: ‘Our elderly are facing a potentially deadly winter as Keir Starmer cancels the lifeline of the winter fuel allowance, but at the same time he is doing nothing to clamp down on workless migrants.’
Tory MP Neil O’Brien, who has researched the impact of migration on the workforce, said: ‘This report shows migration policy is literally not working. We need a system where the numbers coming are capped at a much lower level and the system is much more selective.
‘No one has a problem with a small number of highly skilled workers coming here but that is not what our current migration rules are delivering and sadly there is no sign of that changing under Keir Starmer.’
A Government spokesman said last night: ‘It is incorrect to apply an average cost to migrants out of work as estimates need to take into account individual circumstances. Most education and welfare costs are not applicable to working-age migrants who are not students.’