Outrageous & Unbelievable - Polygamous immigrant families to Britain to be paid more benefits after Government blunder

Immigrants with more than one wife because of their religion are to get higher benefits in future after Government attempts to reform the welfare system spectacularly backfired.

Under new rules, the extra wives in a polygamous household will for the first time be able to claim a full single person's allowance, while the original married couple will still get a married person's allowance, official papers have warned.

Currently people in Britain's polygamous families are treated differently and paid less benefits.

The extra wives currently receive reduced individual income support because the Government recognises their husband will also get the standard married allowance with his original wife.

But as part of the Coalition's wide-ranging benefit reforms this nuance has inadvertently been scrapped, opening up a loophole for Britain's thousand-plus polygamous households.

These details were revealed in a paper published in the House of Commons library.

'Treating second and subsequent partners in polygamous relationships as separate claimants could mean that polygamous households receive more under universal credit than under the current rules for means-tested benefits and tax credits,' the document says.

The first Asian woman to receive a peerage, Baroness Flather, has spoken out widely on the issue of polygamous families claiming benefits.