Nigel Farage reacted with fury after new figures revealed more than one million migrants claim Universal Credit in Britain. The data from the Department for Work and Pensions shows the number of foreign nationals claiming the benefit rose from 906,000 in June 2022 to 1.27 million in June this year.
The benefits claims were broken down by nationality by the government department for the first time. In a video on X, Reform UK leader Mr Farage said: “This is going to make you angry. For the first time the DWP has given us some figures that many have wanted for years.
“The result, there are 1.3 million migrants in Britain on Universal Credit and over half of them don’t do any work at all.
“This goes completely against the lie we’ve been told for 25 years that immigration is fine because everyone’s working and everyone’s contributing.
“We can see from this they’re not. The cost of this, by the way, is £12 billion every year. We keep being asked, ‘Where will Reform get the money from?’
“Well, I tell you what, here’s £12 billion that would be a very good start indeed.”
Lashing out at the Tories, the Clacton MP added: “Some of this has happened since Labour came to power but nearly all of it happened during 14 years of Conservative government.
“And if they dare say a word about these numbers today don’t take them seriously. Frankly, they should be in hiding for what they’ve done to this country.”
Mr Farage’s insurgent party has vowed to ban migrants from claiming benefits in Britain.
Some 770,379 of the claims are from EU nationals, while non-EU nationals make up the remaining 492,502, according to the figures.
The majority – 737,799 – of the migrants are unemployed, while 510,970 are in some kind of work.
A Government spokesman said: “People in the UK illegally, with no immigration status, cannot receive Universal Credit, and have no access to public funds.
“But we want to tighten up the system by doubling the current length of time it takes to apply once legal status is awarded, from five to 10 years, as part of a new contribution-based model to settlement.
“We inherited a broken welfare system and spiralling, unsustainable benefits bill. We’re acting to reform the system, including tightening these sorts of rules.
“The proportion of Universal Credit payments to foreign nationals has already fallen since last July.”
