Taxpayers shelled out £6.6 billion on asylum seeker and refugee support schemes including trips to the zoo and tennis lessons, a Sunday Express investigation has revealed. Sandwich deliveries, friendship services and even a visit to Sir Keir Starmer’s beloved Arsenal football stadium were also included in programmes to help them “integrate” into British life.

The massive cost was racked up in 200 government and local council-funded schemes during the past five years. Critics slammed the “bonkers” expenditure and said much of the money should have been spent on improving public services and communities instead. But the Refugee Council insisted that cutting them would leave refugees isolated, communities divided and the taxpayer poorer.