Concerns Raised Over UK Asylum Seekers Utilizing Public Funds For Gambling

Asylum applicants are using taxpayer handouts to fund their gambling habits. Pre-paid cards provided to pay for fundamentals including food and clothes are being utilized in betting locations such as bookmakers, amusement arcades and even gambling establishments, Office information shows.


In the in 2015, as much as 6,537 asylum candidates have used the government-issued cards a minimum of once for gaming. The shock figures were released under liberty of details laws to the PoliticsHome site. They triggered require an immediate clampdown to avoid the abuse of taxpayers' cash by asylum applicants, consisting of lots of who got in the nation unlawfully. Last night, the Office verified it had actually introduced an inquiry into the scandal.


It came as Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp (pictured) described the 'shocking' figures as 'an insult to taxpayers'. 'These individuals have illegally entered this country without requiring to - France is safe and nobody requires to run away from there,' he stated. 'The British taxpayer has put them up in hotels and now they slap us in the face by utilizing the money they are provided to money gaming. These illegal immigrants plainly don't need the cash they are provided if they are wasting it at gambling establishments and arcades. Labour has lost control of our borders with record numbers for prohibited immigrants crossing the Channel this year. The number in asylum hotels has actually gone up considering that the election and now we find out of this insult to British taxpayers. Everyone illegally crossing the Channel must be instantly gotten rid of to their nation of origin or a safe third country in order to prevent these crossings.'


So-called Aspen cards are provided to asylum candidates while they wait to have their claims dealt with - a procedure that can take months, and even years. Those in self-catered lodging get ₤ 49.18 on the card weekly to pay for 'clothes and footwear, non-prescription medicines, travel, food, non-alcoholic drinks, toiletries, laundry, toilet paper and communications'. The cards are currently provided to around 80,000 individuals who are waiting on a decision on whether they have a valid claim to remain in the UK. Many are residing in hotels at the taxpayers' expenditure. The Office last night stated: 'The Home Office have begun an examination into the usage of Aspen cards. The Office has a legal obligation to support asylum applicants, including any dependants, who would otherwise be destitute.'


The Office is able to track where the cards are used however does not block payments for particular kinds of transaction. The figures reveal that significant numbers of asylum candidates are now using the cards to bet. The Home Office figures break down the number of asylum hunters tried to utilize their cards in gambling locations each week. They do not tape how many times each to use their card in that week. They show that approximately 125 asylum applicants a week used their cards with 'gambling-related merchants'.


Dozens used the cards weekly, with 177 utilizing them to bet in Christmas week when lots of places are closed. The figures peaked at 227 in one week at the end of November in 2015. The Aspen cards utilize a chip and pin system so can not be used for contactless payments or online. An Office source insisted it was 'not possible' to use the cards to straight place a bet. However, the information is comprehended to include withdrawals made from atm inside venues such as amusement games and casinos - where betting is the sole focus.


Paul Bristow (visualized), Tory mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, recommended gaming by asylum applicants at the taxpayers' expense might even be fuelling the development of the industry. He told PoliticsHome: 'Peterborough has actually seen a huge increase in the number of betting establishments and video gaming centres, and a huge increase in guys who have actually arrived on small boats. It's not unusual to see the extremely same men in some of the facilities on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. There's something going on here. Questions require to be asked. It would be absolutely wrong if they were using money offered to them by British taxpayers to squander on gaming.'


Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice said: 'This discovery, paired with migrants working unlawfully, shows that the Office is incapable of policing the prohibited migrant population. This is a slap in the face to hardworking British taxpayers who are struggling to make ends fulfill.' The discoveries are likely to fuel concerns about the surge in little boat crossings under Labour. Around 20,000 individuals crossed the Channel unlawfully in the first half of this year - a rise of 50 per cent on the previous year. Public anger is already mounting over the policy of accommodating 10s of thousands of asylum seekers in hotels across the country, with upset protests emerging in current days in Epping, in Essex, Diss in Norfolk and Canary Wharf, in London.


The Aspen cards were introduced to offer basic subsistence for asylum applicants who are not lawfully permitted to work or claim benefits for the most part. But ministers are progressively concerned at evidence of illegal working by asylum seekers, which may permit some to treat their taxpayer-funded handouts as pin money. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has purchased a clampdown on illegal working today following a string of reports about asylum applicants making money in the gig economy with shipment companies such as Deliveroo and Just Eat. In many cases, delivery bikes bearing the firms' logos have actually been seen parked outside asylum hotels.


Firms will be issued with information on the locations of asylum hotels and purchased to stop utilizing employees who appear to have actually been operating from there. But specialists question whether this will work. Emma Brooksbank, migration partner at law practice Freeths, said the strategy was likely to show ineffective. 'It will not be tough for prohibited employees to bypass this limitation and avoid detection. Companies like these gig economy operators are mainly unregulated, and as such the normal right to work penalties of ₤ 60,000 per unlawful employee do not use. They have no real reward to clean up their act.'


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