Failed asylum seeker families offered up to £40,000 to leave Britain voluntarily in new Labour scheme

Under the new pilot scheme, families of people unable to claim asylum were offered up to £40,000 to voluntarily leave the UK.

The Home Office today told 150 families they were eligible to receive a lump sum of £10,000 per person for up to four people if they agreed to go.

If successful, the program could be expanded to thousands more families.

This is significantly more generous than current cash incentives for immigrants who agree to leave voluntarily, which are currently capped at £3,000 per person.

Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood has approved the huge payments to save larger sums of money spent on keeping families in migrant hotels and other types of accommodation at taxpayer expense.

Fiscal incentives are necessary because Labor canceled the previous government’s Rwanda plan; In this program, it was envisaged that adult refugees would be compulsorily sent to East Africa, but not here.

The payments are also an attempt to overcome the hurdles the Home Office faces in trying to remove unsuccessful asylum seekers, including last-minute human rights claims and problems obtaining travel documents from their home countries.

The plan will only apply to people whose home countries are deemed safe; This has led critics to question why these individuals should be given large sums of taxpayer money to leave Britain.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp described the plan as ‘an insult to British taxpayers’.

It was revealed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs was planning to use physical force, including against children, if families who could not request asylum rejected the offer.

Consultations were held with police and experts in education and care to determine what level of force could be used against children in what authorities said would be a ‘lawful, dignified and appropriate’ way to do so.

Speaking at the IPPR think tank in central London today, Ms Mahmood said ‘increased stimulus payments’ could bring ‘significant savings’ to the public purse.

‘Where a voluntary deportation is refused, we will expedite forced deportation for those who can be returned to their safe country,’ he said.

‘We are currently consulting on how the removal of families with children should occur in a humane and effective manner.

‘Families who failed to comply have known for too long that we were not enforcing our rules, creating a perverse incentive to cross the Channel in a small boat with children.’

The Government believes the payments will save taxpayers money because the Government believes it currently costs on average £158,000 to support a family unable to apply for asylum.

‘This is a ridiculous amount of money,’ said a Home Office source.

‘We have to get them out.’

Migrants run along Gravelines beach in northern France to board smugglers’ boats bound for England earlier this week

Asylum seekers in the first group of 150 families were given seven days to accept the new offer.

If they fail to do so, it will be withdrawn permanently.

Migrants jockey for space on dangerously crowded boats

If they agree to leave, the money will be loaded onto electronic payment cards that families can access when they reach their home countries on taxpayer-funded flights.

The source said the £10,000 per person amount could be increased or decreased depending on the implementation of the pilot programme.

There are currently thousands of unsuccessful asylum seeker families supported by public funds, but the Home Office does not know the exact number due to weaknesses in data collection, officials said.

The families’ requests were rejected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and they subsequently failed to gain refugee status through the appeals system.

However, sources confirmed that 700 Albanian families who have exhausted their appeal process are still receiving support from the state budget.

Border Security Minister Alex Norris, who opposes the principle of giving such large sums of money to unsuccessful asylum seekers, told LBC: ‘This is better value for British taxpayers.

‘Today’s situation will shelter them forever’ [is] It costs £158,000 a year.’

A large number of migrants were brought to the port of Ramsgate in Kent by the UK Border Force today, just as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced new measures.

He added: ‘The people we are talking about are families who were unsuccessful in their initial application. They were unsuccessful in their appeal.

‘There are no living asylum applications in this country, they have no future in the country.

‘It’s not good for them, it’s not good for the kids.

‘So we’re supporting them as we have in the past, but we’re increasing the levels in this pilot support up to that number to encourage them to leave.’

If all 150 families in the top tier of the repatriation scheme accepted the offer, it would cost the taxpayer an estimated £6 million but save £23.7 million a year in ongoing support costs based on the average family.

Conservative front defender Mr Philp said: ‘This is an insult to British taxpayers.

‘Shabana Mahmood had to pay illegal immigrants to leave because she totally failed to force them away; Only six per cent of arrivals on small boats were removed under the Labor Government.

‘Offering £40,000 to people who cannot apply for asylum to leave the country will only reward and encourage illegal immigration.

‘If we left the European Convention on Human Rights, we could deport all illegal immigrants without paying.

‘But Shabana Mahmood is too weak to do this.’

Alp Mehmet, president of Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for tightening border controls, said about the new aid: ‘If these people have gone through legal processes and can be dismissed, then they should be dismissed without being paid.

‘This is absolutely wrong.

‘It would also be unfair to people struggling financially in this country to see these very significant sums distributed to people who have no right to be here.’

He added: ‘It is absurd to offer up to £40,000 and a taxpayer-funded trip to people who could be repatriated without such an eye-watering incentive.

‘All these risks are encouraging more illegal arrivals; If all efforts to stay fail, we are safe in the knowledge that there will still be a £10,000 donation at the end of the flight home.

‘This is crazy.’

The Home Secretary’s opening speech today also included a number of other immigration reforms that have been pursued in recent days; Some of these were first announced last year.

These include measures to withdraw asylum support from immigrants who commit crimes, work illegally, are granted the right to work, or are able to earn a living.

A Home Office source said they could not say how many asylum seekers currently housed at taxpayers’ expense had committed crimes.

However, they added that there were ‘around thousands’.

Another 275 small boats arrived on Wednesday.

The total number of arrivals to the UK since Labor came to power has risen to just over 67,400.

Today, just as the Home Secretary was making his speech, scores of immigrants were disembarked on Border Force ships at Ramsgate in Kent.