Shabana Mahmood to copy Danish scheme in move Home Office says is ‘in UK taxpayer’s interest’
Asylum-seeking families are to be offered up to £40,000 to leave Britain under a scheme announced by Shabana Mahmood on Thursday.
The Home Secretary is to launch a pilot where up to £10,000 per person will be given to families if they agree to return to their home country within seven days.
Around 150 families are expected to take part in the trial, under which a mother, father and two children could get a maximum of £40,000.
Ms Mahmood will argue that the scheme – modelled on a similar initiative in Denmark – will save the taxpayer as much as £20m as it would cost the state some £158,000 to house a family of four in a UK hotel every year, potentially indefinitely.
It will be targeted at families whose initial asylum application has been rejected, have failed in their appeal against their removal and have no outstanding live claims that would prevent them from leaving.
Alex Norris, the Home Office minister, denied that the scheme was “reward for failure” or that it would act as a “magnet” to draw other families seeking to cross the Channel in small boats to claim asylum.
Ms Mahmood has based her package of immigration policies on measures introduced by the social democratic government in Denmark, which she visited last week. The Scandinavian country pioneered a scheme where it offered migrants up to £30,000 per person, three times the UK’s trial rate, to voluntarily agree to leave quickly.
The Home Office has already launched a scheme under which foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers get up to £3,000 in government support to “reintegrate” in their home countries if they agree to leave the UK.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/05/asylum-seekers-families-offered-40k-to-leave-britain/ 
