Home Office criticised over ‘woefully’ understated Tory asylum budgets

Jeremy Hunt dismissed the claims made by Rachel Reeves that the Tories had left a £22bn ‘hole’ in public finances. Photograph: Ian Vogler/Reuters

The Home Office has been accused of submitting “woeful” budget figures under successive Conservative ministers – which officials knew understated the ballooning cost of asylum and illegal immigration spending.

In a report partially vindicating Rachel Reeves’s claim that the new Labour government inherited a far worse financial situation than initially thought, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) thinktank suggested the Home Office had repeatedly lowballed its budget estimates.