Migrants face £50 'tax' for public services

Published on Thursday 19 March 2009 22:29

ECONOMIC migrants and students coming to the UK from outside the European Union will have to pay a £50 levy towards the cost of the public services they will consume, government ministers confirmed yesterday.

But the 70 million which it is expected the "migrant tax" will raise over the next two years was dismissed by a pressure group as "a drop in the ocean" compared with the amount of taxpayers' money spent on them.

The Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-of-centre think-tank, warned the government that it risked fuelling anti- migrant sentiments by suggesting immigrants place strains on schools, the police and the NHS.

Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, yesterday announced the new charge would come into effect later this year to pay for the Migration Impacts Fund, to be distributed to different areas depending on how many migrants they attract.