Economic: Reform Plan Debunked

What the Reform UK Plan Tries To Do

Written by L. Lawson Economist BSc (Econ)

Reform UK plans bank on building a big detention system quickly, sharing data across public services, and flying people to third countries—on the scale of “hundreds of thousands.” This carries very high upfront costs, large ongoing bills, and real risks to the workforce, productivity, and how well public services run. Read on, and I'll give you 12 economic reasons below why their plan will not work!

The Core Problem

The timelines, legal assumptions, and partner‑country capacity just don’t add up. Even if only parts of it happen, the value for money looks poor versus cheaper, smarter border and asylum reforms.

New System‑Wide Risks

Reliance on IT will cause a heavy workloads for the NHS, HMRC, and DVLA which can only be handled by increased public expenditure.

Legal challenges and treaty issues will slow down or even halt removals while costs keep ticking.

There will be knock‑on effects on health uptake, tax compliance, and the labour market—adding to inflation in sectors that are already tight. 

So let me give you the top 12 reasons the Reform UK plan will not work:

Economic Incoherence &  Key Flaws

1) Scale/Capacity Mismatch & Unrealistic Timelines

Building 24,000 secure detention places in 18 months is like adding multiple new prisons all at once—planning, procurement, and staffing make this a high‑risk delivery bet, especially with construction inflation and labour shortages.

Staffing would mean thousands of vetted recruits (custody, healthcare, legal support), directly competing with prisons, police, and the NHS—worsening shortages that we already have.

2) Cost Blowouts & Weak value for Money

Capital spend: At roughly £50k–£150k per bed, 24,000 places cost £1.2–£3.6 billion before land and site work.

Operating spend: £120–£170 per detainee per day comes to around £1.0–£1.5 billion a year at full occupancy, excluding transport, legal, escorts, and overheads.

Removals: “Hundreds of thousands” of people means thousands of charter flights over years; typical flights cost £200k–£500k, more for long‑haul and escorts.

Third‑country deals are very expensive per person in the UK's pilots; payments and guarantees can exceed the cost of processing cases at home. If volumes don’t materialise—as is likely—unit costs will spike.

3) Legal friction turns into cash burn

“No right of appeal” and removals to unsafe destinations clash with non‑refoulement and other obligations, inviting injunctions and judicial review.

Result: fixed costs for beds, contracts, and flights keep accruing while courts cap throughput—classic negative operating leverage.

4) Data‑sharing is a costly, low‑yield drag

Forcing NHS, HMRC, and DVLA to integrate and share data needs major IT, governance, and cybersecurity upgrades—likely to cost hundreds of millions across agencies.

There will also be more chilling effects: people will delay healthcare and vaccinations; some will avoid tax registration—hurting public health and HMRC data quality.

Productivity loss will happen as frontline staff spend more time policing documents than delivering services.

5) Labour Market & Inflation

Rapid removal of working‑age migrants will hit already short‑staffed sectors: social care, hospitality, food processing, agriculture, logistics, construction. Replacing these workers takes time, training, and higher pay.

Expect services to contract and/or higher prices in non‑tradable services—pushing up inflation, public‑sector pay deals, and procurement costs.

GDP impact: even irregular workers add output and pay consumption taxes. You cut supply faster than you cut demand.

6) Opportunity Cost & Crowding Out

Every £1 billion here isn’t spent on higher‑return options: better casework capacity, digital asylum processing, labour‑market enforcement against bad employers, or NHS productivity.

Home Office, police, and courts will be pulled into mass enforcement, slowing work on crime, fraud, and security.

7) International Relations & Trade Risk

Forcible transfers to countries like Afghanistan or Eritrea, or remote‑territory schemes, will invite diplomatic pushback, sanctions, and less cooperation on law enforcement and immigration returns.

Relying on a few partners creates vendor lock‑in; they gain leverage and per‑capita prices go up.

8) Bottlenecks Create Stranded Assets

If courts stall removals or partners limit intake, detention centres sit underused while fixed costs to run them  continue. You then get an expensive holding pattern with little deterrent value.

9) Over‑Optimistic Deterrence

Evidence suggests flows of asylum seekers respond more to conflicts, smuggling networks, and faster, certain processing than to harsher detention. If deterrence is weak, costs stay high with no big drop in arrivals.

10) Governance, Errors & Compensation

Scrapping appeals raises wrongful‑removal risk—bringing compensation, legal damages, and reputational costs, possibly into billions.

New offences such as document destruction or  re‑entry, add to already stretched courts and prisons, lifting costs even further.

11) Remote‑Territory Option (e.g., Ascension Island) is Inefficient

Extremely costly supply chains for staff, supplies, and medical services; expensive rotations and allowances; dependence on air/sea links. Per‑bed costs would exceed UK mainland options with no clear benefits.

12) The Maths Doesn’t Add Up

Irregular migrants have limited access to benefits, and do pay taxes; many fill gaps in the labour market. Under plausible scenarios, the programme’s gross costs outweigh any savings for years to come—possibly indefinitely.

A more economically coherent alternative

Speed up initial screening and returns for clearly ineligible claims by hiring more caseworkers and modernising digital processing—it will be cheaper and faster than mass detention.

Expand a tightly managed work and humanitarian route system to undercut smugglers and meet genuine labour demands.

Enforce labour standards and sanction exploitative employers to reduce illegal work without creating huge public‑sector running costs.

Negotiate practical bilateral returns deals with realistic partners as part of broader cooperation packages, instead of the remote‑territory schemes.

The Bottom Line

Reforms plan is high cost, high risk, and low yield. 

It places strains on public services, courts, and diplomacy while raising inflation in already tight sectors. 

Smarter processing, targeted enforcement, and viable legal routes deliver more control for much less money!