Are you of the opinion that immigrants who have lived and worked in the UK for years, paid taxes, and have permanent residence rights should not have access to Universal Credit? Settled status/Indefinite Leave to Remain isn’t temporary migration, these are usually granted after at least five years living and working legally in the UK.
The £10.6bn figure sounds dramatic, but it lacks important context. Universal Credit is calculated at household level, and that category includes households where at least one person is not a UK national, which can mean long-term residents or mixed British families. The full payment is recorded against the household as a whole, not attributed solely to an individual immigrant claimant.
When you look at the actual breakdown:
Around 84% of Universal Credit claimants are UK or Irish citizens.
Roughly 12–14% are long-term settled residents (EU settled status or Indefinite Leave to Remain).
Only about 2% fall into refugee or humanitarian protection categories.
Many of the people being counted in these figures are not recent arrivals, they are long-term residents who have already contributed to the UK economy and tax system for years.
Concerns about immigration are worth debating. There can be local pressures on housing and services in certain areas, and when public services feel strained, people look for visible causes, and immigration becomes a focal point, even though the drivers are usually broader. Economists generally link UK wage stagnation more to weak productivity, austerity, brexit, and low investment, so the picture is more complex than immigration simply driving decline.