British taxpayers will have to fork out £500 million over the next five years to pay for flights home for thousands of illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers. Around £200 million of this will be spent on purchasing airline tickets chartering special flights.
The figure came to light after the Home Office published a tender inviting private companies to bid to supply its deportation services. The document says:
“In order to facilitate the removal of detainees from the UK, it is necessary to provide sufficient escort and transportation staff to enable their safe and secure passage.
“This will include vulnerable detainees, as well as those who refuse to leave the UK voluntarily and those being removed on chartered flights.
“The total contract value for Escorting and Travel Services is estimated at £500m including travel ticket costs of approximately £200m.”
The Times reports that Whitehall sources say the figure is based on the estimated number of future migrants who will need to be deported.
On top of this, UK taxpayers are also expected to have to help pay for migrants at Calais to be sent home under deal that Home Secretary Theresa May has signed with her French counterpart.
The figures come on the same day new data was published showing UK immigration at a record high. The Office for National Statistics said that net migration was now above 330,000, reporting that the “increase in non-EU net migration to 196,000 (up 39,000) was also statistically significant”.
It added: “53,000 Romanian and Bulgarian citizens immigrated to the UK in YE March 2015, a statistically significant increase and almost double the 28,000 in the previous 12 months.”
UKIP leader Nigel Farage told Breitbart London: “These figures reflect borderless Britain and total impotence of the British government. If open borders are not part of the Cameron [EU referendum] renegotiation then what’s the point of it?”
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