{"id":314948,"date":"2025-09-09T06:05:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T06:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=314948"},"modified":"2025-09-11T07:26:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T07:26:39","slug":"labour-refuses-to-reveal-how-much-money-asylum-seekers-are-getting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=314948","title":{"rendered":"Labour Refuses to Reveal How Much Money Asylum Seekers are Getting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will Jones \u2013 Daily Sceptic Sept 6, 2025<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

Labour has refused to reveal how many top-up debit card payments have been made to asylum seekers after it emerged some were using the money for gambling. The Telegraph <\/em>has the story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Steve Barclay, a former Conservative minister, accused the\u00a0Home Office\u00a0of trying to avoid scrutiny after his requests for the data were rejected three times.<\/p>\n

Asylum Support Enablement Cards (also known as Aspen cards) offer financial support for basic necessities like food, clothing and toiletries. A claimant in\u00a0self-catering accommodation\u00a0typically receives \u00a349.18 each week via a Visa debit card which enables users to withdraw cash as well as pay for in-store purchases.<\/p>\n

However, concerns have been raised over their use, including the disclosure that some had been used to make\u00a0gambling\u00a0payments.<\/p>\n

Up to 6,537 asylum seekers have used the government cards at least once in the past year in venues such as bookmakers, amusement arcades and\u00a0casinos,\u00a0according to figures released under a Freedom of Information request. Attempts to gamble online using the cards were made, but were blocked each time.<\/p>\n

Mr Barclay, who was charged by Boris Johnson with overseeing efforts to tackle the small boats crisis, said: \u201cEither the Home Office is intentionally trying to avoid scrutiny, or they simply don\u2019t know \u2013 either of which is damning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been real concerns about the use of Asylum Support Enablement Cards and the public have a right to know exactly how often taxpayers\u2019 money is being sent to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could be one of the many pull-factors that is fuelling the\u00a0small boats crisis, which is even further out of control under Labour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way we can tackle it is through tougher measures, and to do this we will need to be out of the European Convention on Human Rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Barclay has asked a series of Parliamentary questions over the past six months to try to extract information on the number of top-up payments made to Aspen cards. Yet on three occasions, he said the Home Office has refused to answer.<\/p>\n

Worth reading in full<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Labour has refused to reveal how many top-up debit card payments have been made to asylum seekers after it emerged some were using the money for gambling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":314950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-european-migrant-crisis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314949,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314948\/revisions\/314949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/314950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}