Government work visas reportedly cost at least £5m: did young Britons lose out? REPRODUCE THIS INVESTIGATION Repeat the supported checks in order. Begin with the original claim, reproduce the inspectable payment subtotal, then read the official youth definitions before drawing a conclusion about hiring. You will need: A web browser and a spreadsheet reader. Optional Python 3 runs the supplied standard-library calculation script. The ZIP contains five original government CSVs and selected factual extracts, not photographs or correspondence. ACCESS AND DATA LIMITS This route reproduces the bounded payment and youth checks. It cannot independently recover the reporter’s missing all-department extract or identify unique visa holders and rejected applicants. Original ONS XLSX/PDF retrieval was blocked during research, so that step uses the complete official bulletin; no raw ONS workbook is supplied. The linked newspaper or Instagram pages may require normal account access. WORKING FILES Source notes: https://tallycat01.com/downloads/yusuf-government-visas-five-million-source-notes.txt Timeline: https://tallycat01.com/downloads/yusuf-government-visas-five-million-timeline.csv 1. Read what Yusuf actually posted Open both panels of the 14 October 2026 post and read the short author caption. Identify the reported £5 million, more than 1,500 visas and youth comparison. Locate the explicit mention of renewals. Then open Martin Beckford’s 12 October Mail report to separate the reporter’s aggregate and departmental components from our later checks. Keep in mind: Do not infer that Yusuf concealed renewals or supplied an exact count of British applicants who were rejected. Zia Yusuf: Original two-panel Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/zia.yusuf/p/Dee1XOKFdPO/ Martin Beckford / Daily Mail: Whitehall spending on visas for foreign workers: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16201143/Whitehall-spending-5million-taxpayers-money-visas-foreign-workers.html 2. Download the exact MoJ January to May files Open the MoJ 2026 publication page and its January, February, March, April and May CSV attachments. Alternatively unzip the supplied five-original-file bundle. Match each original’s SHA-256 to source-files.csv. In a spreadsheet reader, preserve the original column headings and row order; do not deduplicate equal amounts. Keep in mind: These are the originals retrieved on 16 October 2026, not verified claim-time archived bytes. The ZIP README identifies their original filenames and URLs. Ministry of Justice: MoJ procurement-card spending over £500: 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/moj-spending-over-500-on-a-government-procurement-card-2026 3. Count the February to May sponsorship payments For the February to May files only, filter the merchant/description cells for VISA SPONSORSHIP PAYMENT and sum the transaction-amount column. Use Decimal amounts in the optional script. Expect February 141 rows / £510,285; March 63 / £271,470; April 107 / £466,695; May 189 / £755,925. 141 + 63 + 107 + 189 = 500 payment rows £510,285 + £271,470 + £466,695 + £755,925 = £2,004,375 Keep in mind: Keep the file labels as reporting periods. Do not change payment rows into visas or people. Ministry of Justice: MoJ procurement-card spending over £500: 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/moj-spending-over-500-on-a-government-procurement-card-2026 4. Keep the January discrepancy visible In the January MoJ file, select UKVI payment descriptions. Expect an additional 225 rows / £947,085. The combined January to May file-period selection is 725 rows / £2,951,460. Compare this with the Mail’s stated January-to-May 500 / about £2 million component. Check C2E merchant reference plus amount before alleging duplication. Keep in mind: No repeated reference-plus-amount pair was found to justify discarding January. That is a specific duplicate check, not a claim that each row identifies one person. The selection discrepancy remains open. Ministry of Justice: MoJ procurement-card spending over £500: 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/moj-spending-over-500-on-a-government-procurement-card-2026 Martin Beckford / Daily Mail: Whitehall spending on visas for foreign workers: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16201143/Whitehall-spending-5million-taxpayers-money-visas-foreign-workers.html 5. Repeat the other bounded checks with their actual periods Use payment-rows.csv and source-files.csv to open the exact originals listed for the earlier MoJ, DWP, HMRC and combined government-lawyer checks. MoJ/DWP: select the declared reporting-file periods and descriptions containing UKVI, UK VISAS &/AND or VISA SPONSORSHIP; count rows and sum the single source amount. Expect MoJ July 2024 to December 2025: 597 / £1,450,608; DWP July 2024 to May 2026: 347 / £1,068,596. HMRC/lawyers: filter supplier for VISA or IMMIGRATION and actual posting dates 5 July 2024 to 31 August 2026, preserving credits and repeated ODS rows. Expect HMRC 107 rows including one £3,500 credit, net £402,597; combined lawyers 87 positive rows / £394,882. Keep in mind: The supplied script recalculates these from the selected factual extracts. Only the five MoJ 2026 originals are bundled; the complete source inventory links the other originals. Expand nonempty ODS row repetitions, preserve sheet/row locators and do not assign all combined-lawyer rows to AGO. Ministry of Justice: MoJ procurement-card spending over £500: 2024: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/moj-spending-over-500-on-a-gpc-2024 Ministry of Justice: MoJ procurement-card spending over £500: 2025: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/moj-spending-over-500-on-a-gpc-2025 Department for Work and Pensions: DWP and CMG spending over £500: May 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-and-cmg-spending-over-500-may-2026 HM Revenue & Customs: HMRC spending over £500: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrc-spending-over-500 Attorney General’s Office / Government Legal Department / HMCPSI: AGO, GLD and HMCPSI procurement-card publications: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ago-gld-and-hmcpsi-gpc-transactions-over-500-feb-to-apr-2023 6. Read which fees the employer must bear Open Part 2 sponsor guidance version 10/26 and read the sponsor-fee, Immigration Skills Charge and refund sections. Distinguish employer sponsorship charges from personal application fees. Read the MoJ statement as reported by the Mail. Keep in mind: Historical rates and rules differ. This does not classify every pound of the reported bill as compulsory or establish zero taxpayer cost. Home Office: Sponsor guidance, Part 2: sponsor a worker: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/workers-and-temporary-workers-guidance-for-sponsors-part-2-sponsor-a-worker/workers-and-temporary-workers-guidance-for-sponsors-part-2-sponsor-a-worker-accessible--2 Martin Beckford / Daily Mail: Whitehall spending on visas for foreign workers: https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16201143/Whitehall-spending-5million-taxpayers-money-visas-foreign-workers.html 7. Check the matching youth population and arithmetic Open the 27 August 2026 ONS bulletin. Read the main points, the April-to-June 2026 unemployed/economically-inactive subsections and the glossary. Expect 981,000 UK residents aged 16 to 24 outside work, education or training, 13.0% of the age group; 393,000 seeking/available and 588,000 inactive. Divide each subgroup by 981,000 for rounded composition. 393,000 + 588,000 = 981,000 393,000 / 981,000 × 100 = 40.06% 588,000 / 981,000 × 100 = 59.94% 13.0% is about one in eight of the same age group Keep in mind: The complete bulletin was preserved, but original binary XLSX/PDF retrieval was blocked. These are rounded survey estimates, all nationalities; 393,000 is not all unemployed young people. Office for National Statistics: Young people not in education, employment or training: August 2026: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/bulletins/youngpeoplenotineducationemploymentortrainingneet/august2026 8. State the supported answer and the unresolved question Keep the reported aggregate distinct from reproduced payment subtotals. Record that the national youth count and visa bill do not identify applicants or hiring outcomes. Actual job and selection records are needed. Compare no visa share with workforce stocks, annual entrants or NEET totals. Keep in mind: Two spending-record requests are drafted and unsent. No relevant hiring records, guaranteed reply, response deadline or configured automatic monitoring are claimed. Zia Yusuf: Original two-panel Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/zia.yusuf/p/Dee1XOKFdPO/ Civil Service Commission: Recruitment Principles 2018: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/document/02a-recruitment-principles-april-2018-final/ Cabinet Office: Civil Service statistics 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2026 Office for National Statistics: Young people not in education, employment or training: August 2026: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/bulletins/youngpeoplenotineducationemploymentortrainingneet/august2026 ADDITIONAL WORKING FILES Original MoJ CSVs and calculation route · ZIP: https://tallycat01.com/downloads/yusuf-government-visas-five-million-recalculate.zip Selected factual payment rows · CSV: https://tallycat01.com/downloads/yusuf-government-visas-five-million-payment-rows.csv Source-file URLs and hashes · CSV: https://tallycat01.com/downloads/yusuf-government-visas-five-million-source-files.csv Checked figures and scope · CSV: https://tallycat01.com/downloads/yusuf-government-visas-five-million-checked-figures.csv Evidence checked: 16 October 2026 Research and production assisted by AI