Households with foreign nationals received £11.9bn in Universal Credit
Payments rose by 25% in 2025, with 65% going to claimants not in work.
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Households with foreign nationals received £11.9bn in Universal Credit
Photograph: [your]NEWS (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Households containing at least one foreign national received £11.9 billion in Universal Credit in 2025.
- This amount is a 25% increase from 2024 and a 59% increase from 2023.
- Approximately £7.7 billion, or 65% of the total, was paid to claimants categorised as not working.
- The figures measure households with at least one foreign national, not payments made exclusively to foreign nationals.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 6 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 7 of the 13 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .
Trust
50/100
Craft
45/100
Hype
65/100
13 sources · methodology
Thin on the left so far
None of the 6 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Households in the UK with at least one foreign national received £11.9 billion in Universal Credit during 2025. This figure represents a 25% increase from the £9.5 billion paid in 2024 and a 59% increase from the £7.5 billion paid in 2023. Department for Work and Pensions data shows that approximately £7.7 billion, or 65% of the total payments, were associated with claimants categorised as not working. The figures measure households containing at least one foreign national, not payments made exclusively to foreign nationals.
Coverage disagreements
The Telegraph, LBC, and yourNEWS reported that the total payment figure was £11.9 billion. GB News, PressNewsAgency, and London Loves Business reported the figure as approximately £12 billion.
What the coverage left out
None of the right-rated reports mentioned the proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain (ILR) rules being considered by the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, or the specific details of those proposals, such as the potential increase in the qualifying period to 10 or 15 years. The reports also did not include the government spokesperson's statement to LBC that 'Under this government, net migration is down by 82% from its 2023 peak'.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 7 times, most recently on 22 Sept 2026, 10:30, and will add the sides that appear.
How other outlets pictured it
Which photograph to run is each newsroom’s own choice. The leaning beside a name is that outlet’s published rating, not a claim that the pictures divide along it. Every picture is shown from the outlet’s own server and links to the article it ran in.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
0 rated outlets
No outlet rated left has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.
Centre
0 rated outlets
No outlet rated centre has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.
Right
6 rated outlets
- Right-rated reports focused on the record sum of Universal Credit paid to households with foreign nationals and the proportion paid to unemployed individuals. YourNEWS stated that the £11.9 billion figure was obtained through freedom of information laws and noted that immigration and welfare eligibility are central political issues. LBC quoted the shadow home secretary, Chris Philip, who called the figures 'shocking' and an 'insult to hard-working taxpayers', adding that paying unemployed foreigners was an 'insult to hard-working taxpayers'. LBC also quoted Robert Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, who said the figures made a 'mockery of the suggestion that mass legal migration has been a boon for Britain’s economy' and that it was 'unconscionable that universal credit is being used to prop up the lifestyle of idle migrants'. Breitbart and The Savage Nation highlighted that the British taxpayer is handing out these payments. GB News described the payments as an 'insult' to British taxpayers and linked them to a 'migrant crisis'.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover Households with foreign nationals received £11.9bn in Universal Credit?
- Of the 6 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 0% are rated left, 0% are rated centre, 100% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 13. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is Households with foreign nationals received £11.9bn in Universal Credit left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 6 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of Households with foreign nationals received £11.9bn in Universal Credit biased?
- Households with foreign nationals received £11.9bn in Universal Credit is one event reported by 13 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting Households with foreign nationals received £11.9bn in Universal Credit?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered Households with foreign nationals received £11.9bn in Universal Credit?
- 13 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- How much did households with foreign nationals receive in Universal Credit in 2025?
- Households in the UK containing at least one foreign national received a record £11.9 billion in Universal Credit during 2025. This was a 25% increase from the previous year and a 59% increase from 2023.
- What proportion of Universal Credit payments went to unemployed claimants?
- Approximately £7.7 billion, which constituted 65% of the total Universal Credit payments made to households with at least one foreign national, was paid to claimants categorised as not working.
- Do these figures represent payments made exclusively to foreign nationals?
- No, the figures measure households containing at least one foreign national, not payments made exclusively to foreign nationals. A household may include individuals with different nationalities or immigration statuses.
Read it at the source
13 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Centre
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Right
6- Universal Credit Payments to Households With Foreign Nationals Reach Record £11.9 Billion in Britain (opens [your]NEWS in a new tab)
[your]NEWS — is [your]NEWS biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Households with migrants claim record £12bn in universal credit (opens LBC in a new tab)
- MichaelSavage.com – Migrant Households Receiving Record Amount of Direct Welfare Payments in Britain (opens The Savage Nation in a new tab)
The Savage Nation — is The Savage Nation biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Migrant Households Receiving Record Amount of UK Welfare Payments (opens Breitbart in a new tab)
- Migrant households receive record £12bn in universal credit (opens The Telegraph in a new tab)
The Telegraph — is The Telegraph biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Migrant families take home record £12BILLION in universal credit claims in 'insult' to British taxpayers (opens GB News in a new tab)
Not rated
7- Brutal ‘insult to hard-working taxpayers’ as migrant households claim record £11.9bn in benefits - London Business News (opens London Loves Business in a new tab)
London Loves Business — is London Loves Business biased? Our profile of this outlet
- How Much Do Immigrants Get in Benefits in the UK? (opens polishexpress.eu in a new tab)
polishexpress.eu — is polishexpress.eu biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Record Migration Bill in the UK: £11.9 Billion Paid to Households with Foreign Citizens, of Which £7.7 Billion Returned to Unemployed Migrants (opens Gândul in a new tab)
- Foreign national households received record £11.9bn in Universal Credit, figures show – NATIONAL NEWS (opens The Droitwich Standard in a new tab)
The Droitwich Standard — is The Droitwich Standard biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Foreign national households received record £11.9bn in Universal Credit, figures show – NATIONAL NEWS (opens rugbyobserver.co.uk in a new tab)
rugbyobserver.co.uk — is rugbyobserver.co.uk biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Foreign national households received record £11.9bn in Universal Credit, figures show – NATIONAL NEWS (opens coventryobserver.co.uk in a new tab)
coventryobserver.co.uk — is coventryobserver.co.uk biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Migrant families take home record £12BILLION in universal credit claims in ‘insult’ to British taxpayers (opens PressNewsAgency in a new tab)
PressNewsAgency — is PressNewsAgency biased? Our profile of this outletOpinion
How did this read?
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