The findings were met with fury from the Tories and Reform UK
SUSANNA SIDDELL
Migrant families have been revealed to take home a record-breaking £12billion in universal credit claims.
Households with at least one foreign national claimed a staggering £11.9billion in universal credit during 2025, a 25 per cent jump compared with the £9.5billion paid out in 2024.
There was a significant increase from £7.5billion the previous year, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data, secured through freedom of information requests by the Centre for Migration Control, show.
The figures show that roughly one in six universal credit payments — 15.6 per cent of the total — went to such households over the past year.
Of the £11.9billion total, some £7.7billion — equivalent to 65 per cent — was directed to claimants who were out of work.
The remaining claims were split across households where at least one foreign national was from inside the European Economic Area.
The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has attracted backlash from her own party after announcing a sweeping set of asylum reforms.
As part of those plans, she has put forward plans to double the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five to 20 years, with an even longer 15-year wait imposed on foreign care workers.
Since coming to power, rebel MPs have pleaded with Mr Burnham to water down the proposals.
Up in arms over the latest findings, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told The Telegraph: “These are shocking figures.
“British taxpayers should not be paying billions in benefits to foreigners, especially given that over half of these payments are for people out of work.
“Paying unemployed foreigners is an insult to hard-working taxpayers.”
His fury was reiterated by Reform’s Treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, who heaped blame onto the “Boriswave”.
He warned: “If Burnham bottles ILR changes, the Boriswave risks becoming permanent and will cost taxpayers tens of billions more.”
Robert Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, described the situation as “nothing short of a fiscal disaster”.
“These figures make a mockery of the suggestion that mass legal migration has been a boon for Britain’s economy,” he fumed.
(UKR)
