Home Office mistakenly refunded migrants £19 MILLION that CANNOT be recovered

Administrative blunders within the Home Office have resulted in migrants receiving at least £18.7million in erroneous refunds.

The money was paid through the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) reimbursement scheme, according to the department's annual report.

Foreign nationals who had paid the NHS surcharge were mistakenly reimbursed for periods they were not entitled to claim.

The IHS requires overseas workers to pay £1,035 annually for each year of their visa, whilst students and children face charges of £776 per year.

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However, an administrative error meant payments were issued "for periods not aligned with the underlying IHS payment," the report stated.

Officials are now attempting to recoup the funds, though the annual report acknowledged that "recovery options are being explored however recoverability remains uncertain."

The full extent of the losses is still being calculated, but the Home Office's annual report revealed a string of additional costly failures during 2025/26, with total wasteful expenditure approaching £100million.

Among the most striking examples was £22.9million spent on the Atrium Hotel in Hounslow, west London, which sat completely empty throughout a nine-month contract signed in August 2025.

The department had secured the accommodation anticipating a surge in asylum applications that would have caused the Manston processing centre in Kent to breach its legal operational requirements.

In the event, improved efficiency measures combined with lower-than-expected demand meant the hotel was never needed.

A further £3.2million was squandered on deportation flights that were subsequently cancelled, classified in official documents as "fruitless payments."

Beyond these failures, the Home Office also lost £35.2million on a botched contract to upgrade the Police National Database.

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The agreement with CGI IT UK Ltd, which received approval in January 2024, was ultimately terminated following "repeated delays, escalating costs, and failure to provide a credible delivery plan."

Separately, the department wrote off £14.9million on a former Ministry of Defence site at Northeye in Bexhill, East Sussex.

The property had been acquired with the intention of housing asylum seekers but was never brought into operation.

Excessive remediation costs made the site unviable, and the Home Office failed to recover any of its initial investment, resulting in what the report described as a "constructive loss" of the entire sum.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: "This is a catastrophic waste of taxpayers’ money by this inept Labour government. Since the election 76,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the Channel, more than under any other prime minister.

"The solution to this is not to put them up in hotel accommodation or anywhere else, which costs hard-pressed British taxpayers billions.

"The solution is to leave the European Convention on Human Rights which will enable us to deport all illegal immigrants within a week of arrival. Then, pretty quickly, the crossings will stop.

"At a time when families struggle to make ends meet and everyone faces ever higher taxes, it is galling that the Labour government is wasting so much of our money on failed projects designed for illegal immigrants."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman told GB News said: "We have taken immediate action to stop any further incorrect payments.

"Enhanced checks and controls are now in place to prevent this happening again and we are working across government to safeguard public money. This has had no impact on frontline NHS services or patient care."

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