Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the cost to the public purse has been of housing and supporting migrants who arrived (a) in October 1998 and (b) on 21 October 2015 in the RAF Dhekelia and RAF Akrotiri Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus.

Penny Mordaunt

It is not possible to provide an exact sum spent in total on the migrants who arrived in 1998. The costs of the provision of welfare and education, based on recent data, is around €165,000 per year.

The total recorded cost to date to the public purse for housing and supporting the migrants who arrived onto Sovereign Base Areas Administrationland on 21 October 2015 is £1,122,972. This includes the initial emergency response, security costs, construction of the Transit Facility and ongoing support costs. Those costs which relate to the support and welfare of the migrants will be counted against the Government’s targets for overseas aid.

An element of this total includes estimated costs that are to be paid in arrears.