The Home Secretary Shaban Mahmood is offering 150 failed asylum seekers with children who are currently living in hotel accommodations across the UK to leave with bags of taxpayers’ money.
Under her scheme, approximately 150 families whose asylum claims have been denied may be offered financial assistance to return to their home countries.
The Home Office could give the asylum seeker up to £10,000 each if they agree to leave within a short timeframe, with total payments potentially capped at £40,000 per family.
The policy aims to reduce the number of people remaining in temporary accommodations while their immigration status is resolved.
Government sources have noted that individuals without legal permission to stay in the UK may face enforced removal procedures if they do not accept the voluntary return offer. However, officials emphasise that any removal operations will comply with UK immigration law, safeguarding standards, and international human rights obligations.
This scheme has sparked political and public debate concerning immigration enforcement, welfare spending, and the use of taxpayer funds to encourage voluntary departure.
The Home Office’s policy on family removals remains subject to legal oversight, and authorities maintain that vulnerable individuals, including children, must be treated in accordance with statutory protection requirements.
A source said: “The average cost to a taxpayer, of each family, is £158,000 a year.
They will have seven days to reply to that offer and then leave the country.
“Crucially, if they do not take this offer, we will look to forcibly remove them from the country. That includes children, but we will never separate parents from their children.
This has been an incredibly successful model in Denmark, in terms of using incentives smartly to increase the removals of failed asylum seekers.
“We estimate, should the pilot be successful, we will save £20million for the taxpayer.”
Mahmood told people at the Institute for Public Policy Research: “For too long, families who have failed their claims have known that we were not enforcing our rules which created a perverse incentive to make a channel crossing with children in the small boat.
It is now on the parents in these families who can safely return to the home they came from to do the right thing…
“By accepting an incentive payment, rather than face an enforced return.”
Reform’s Zia Yusuf fumed: “So, Labour went to Denmark, worked out illegal migrants need a deterrent to stop them coming here, and they announce that those that come here illegally will now win £40,000.”
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