Reform UK announces plan to fill the fiscal black hole

Reform UK has identified savings in public spending that sum to over £25 billion this fiscal year alone - enough to cover the “black hole” created by Rachel Reeves and negate the need for tax rises. Almost all the spending cuts primarily impact foreign nationals without British citizenship, and in many cases would improve capacity and outcomes for British citizens. Labour is choosing to raise taxes on British people to pay foreign nationals.

Reform UK has demanded that Labour implements our proposals immediately:

Capping foreign aid at £1bn p.a - saving £10 billion in 2025/26

While foreign aid is something to aspire to in the long run, the UK simply cannot afford the current level of spending while impoverishing its own citizens. Moreover, there are many examples of foreign aid being wasted or spent in scandalous ways. For example:

• British climate aid was used to fund a £52 million ‘road to nowhere' in Guyana. 
• While Labour was resisting calls for a national inquiry into the grooming gangs, it was wiring £19 million to Pakistan for child exploitation prevention programs. 
• The Tories sent Pakistan over £100 million of British taxpayer money to fund family planning initiatives.  
• The Tories sent Pakistan over £100 million of British taxpayer money to fund family planning initiatives. 
• Despite Welsh 15 year olds having a lower level of educational attainment than Turkish ones, Britain sends millions in foreign aid to Turkey.

The new £1 billion cap will still cover our commitments to retain our seat at the UN, World Bank, IMF and other multilaterals, be used to promote British interests abroad, and preserve a flash fund for genuine disaster relief.

Note the budget for asylum seeker accommodation comes from the foreign aid budget; this would rapidly be eliminated through Reform's deportation program (Operation Restoring Justice) that we have already published, but in terms of a saving that can be made immediately, we assume spending on asylum accommodation remains as per government projections to get to the £10 billion saving this year.

Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) reform - saving £5 billion in 2025/26

Since 2010, the population has grown by about 10% (almost all by immigration), while NHS spending has almost doubled in real terms from £110 billion to £205 billion.

Despite doubling spend; NHS bed capacity has actually fallen.

The IHS was meant to recoup NHS costs from certain visa-holders, but ministers set it far below the true bill: the current standard rate is £1,035 a year (with a discounted rate of £776), even though the government's own impact assessment says the charge is only 38% of the average per-capita NHS cost.

Jenrick as Immigration Minister signed the approval, knowingly giving foreign nationals a 62% discount on the actual per capita cost of the NHS. The cost is clearly too low: for example, we know migrant birth rates are 40% higher than for British citizens, and each birth costs the NHS £7k.

Reform would:

1. End the current exemption many migrants have from paying it, eg: ILR applicants; and 
2. Increase the IHS charge to the government's own published per capita cost of the NHS: Standard - £2,718 pa (discounted rate of £2,040 pa). Note: NHS workers would remain exempt from having to pay and that Reform will abolish ILR and replace it with 5-year renewable visas.

This will raise £5 billion this year (based on OBR forecast for net migration under Labour) and £3.3 billion based on zero net immigration under a Nigel Farage government. Our policy will also relieve pressure on the NHS.

Deporting all foreign criminals as part of Operation Restoring Justice - saving £580 million in 2025/26

Analysis from Onward today puts the total annual cost of foreign nationals in our jails at £643 million, these should be the first people deported. Net of deportation costs, the saving to the taxpayer would be £580 million.

End Universal Credit payments to foreign nationals - saving £6 billion in 2025/26

We would end all forms of welfare for foreign nationals but the government currently withholds data on the costs in providing it to foreign nationals, with the exception of Universal Credit.

UC payments to foreign nationals alone cost £8 billion per annum. Assuming a 3 month transition/notice period still results in a saving of £6 billion this year. This would include recipients with EU Settled Status.

Prime Minister Nigel Farage will renegotiate asymmetric benefit entitlements with the EU under Theresa May and Boris Johnson's atrocious and one-sided withdrawal treaty.

There are very good reasons for this: In 2015 there were almost 4x as many EU nationals claiming benefits in the UK than UK nationals claiming them in the EU. Since then, the number of EU citizens on UK benefits has grown 7-fold.

PIP reform - saving £3.5 billion in 2025/26 - already announced

Move recipients for non serious anxiety issues to a back to work program. See our paper on PIP reform published last month.

Notes to Editor

The attached document is for background only and not for publication.