Writing in the Financial Times (registration needed), Nick Clegg argues in favour of immigration for work purposes from the EU, but lists a range of restrictions on benefits for those coming to the UK:
Overwhelmingly, European migrants come here to work and pay taxes. The ability of people to move across Europe as easily as goods and services is a founding principle of the single market – and a right that millions of Britons have enjoyed. For the sake of British prosperity, we must protect it. That means showing people the rules are fair.
The Guardian summarises as follows:
Clegg suggested that migrants could be prevented from claiming the new universal credit until they have “worked and contributed” to the system.
He also proposed restricting access to in-work benefits like tax credits, suggesting that migrants could be required to work the equivalent of full-time hours on the minimum wage in order to qualify.
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42 Comments
Perhaps he could have announced this 10 days ago on a trip to Rochester?
What on earth is he playing at? There are enough politicians in Britain making pointless attacks on imaginary ‘benefit tourists’ in a bid to woo the (very small) bigot vote.
Agree with Martin Land that this speech should have come earlier and in the UK, but have just read the article and it seems pretty decent. Stays firm to the principle of free movement and the right to work, lays no blame at the door of migrants for UK woes but adds some balance back into the system – is reasonable that child benefit, for those not in this country, should only be paid at the rate of the country in which those children reside.
One part of it which I do wonder about though is that migrants should not be able to claim social housing until they have lived in an area for two years – how is it logical for them be able to move to an area, afford to live there and then – if they stay long enough – claim to do so?
Is benefit tourism a real problem though? How much do our current rules cost us in benefit tourism and how much do these proposed changes expect to save? There are no figures in the Grauniad summary (and so I’ll assume this is because they don’t exist)!
We can not out-UKIP UKIP (or the Tories/Labour here for that matter) so why shift. I remember Farage promising a deluge of Romanian and Bulgarian’s earlier this year which did not materialise yet all three mainstream parties are dancing to his tune.
Finally I do not support the withdrawal of tax credits to those working under full time. I work in the care sector and have seen carers (many foreign nationals) on zero hours contracts lose ‘regular’ clients who are in hospital/respite etc. These are workers not benefit tourists and I can’t see any liberal reason to make their lot worth to pander to inconclusively proven immigration concerns.
I cant agree with Nick on this, Free Movement should mean the same rules for everybody.
*Sorry should read ‘lot worse’ above. My kindgom for an edit button!
ATF asked “how is it logical for them be able to move to an area, afford to live there and then.”
Well it depends on your circumstances doesn’t it? If you’re from a wealthy family then its perfectly logical, and I’m sure the newly graduated Clegg, Cameron or Milliband (to pick three names at random) would have had no problems at all doing just that!
What the British elite can’t stand is that free movement of Labour, applies to ordinary working people, not just people like them. For many years although free movement was part of the EU treaties, not many did it, there were exceptions, as those of us old enough to remember Auf Wiesersehen Pet in the ’80s will remember, but the number who could take advantage of it were fairly small. The accession of poorer countries has made movement more attractive, but who wanted the rapid expansion of the EU – well that was the British wasn’t it?
I believe the actual wording in the treaties talks about free movement of WORKERS, not PEOPLE, so the principle that people shouldn’t move just to claim benefit was already there. I don’t think Clegg’s idea is anything new, but it will need to be negotiated through the EU processes, we won’t achieve it by the usual British tactic of ‘shout loudly to the Continental with a megaphone, or by writing articles in British papers.
And Martin is right, why wait until UKIP have their second re-elected defector before making these comments? Clegg like Cameron and Miliband is just letting that boorish idiot Farage set the political agenda. We should be different to nthe Labservatives, not just the the ‘me too’ party knee jerking for Nigel.
First, prove a problem exists THEN solve the problem.
Fighting a fictional problem is simply dancing to the tune of the Eurosceptics.
I feel very uncomfortable with the inherent contradictions in Nick’s article. He starts by saying that “overwhelmingly” people come here to work and then spends the whole article talking about restricting benefits. What he says just feeds the UKIP narrative. If there is no evidence of a problem, why put so much effort into fixing it?
Why can’t we just be the liberal voice of reason other than a pale imitation of the others?
I seem to remember a few years back the Westminster crowd claiming that treating people from other EU countries differently to UK citizens wasn’t permitted under the EU treaties. I therefore find myself questioning why it has taken so long for Westminster to discover that this isn’t so and hence whether we should be calling for an investigation into how various government departments managed to get it so wrong for so long. Perhaps if they reread all the other EU treaties and directives they might discover other things they’ve misunderstood…
D McKay re: benefit tourism – I seem to remember from recent discussions the figure of 60,000 on JSA in 2013 was cited, but putting this into context this represented a little under 3% of all claimants, with nearly 6% (of all claimants) being non-EU. We shouldn’t forget that a few years back tax credit fraud by non-UK residents was such that the government stopped online applications and changed the way the system worked, for various reasons Child benefit wasn’t included in these changes.
So in some respects this action could be regarded as being a bit like bolting the stable door, but is probably more like putting a self-closer on the door.
“What he says just feeds the UKIP narrative.”
It seems to be something of a habit.
Very much agree with Caron. This goes against our instinctive liberal nature and won’t win us any votes.
‘ I seem to remember from recent discussions the figure of 60,000 on JSA in 2013 was cited, but putting this into context this represented a little under 3% of all claimants’
More importantly, lets remember that claiming JSA does not make you a ‘benefit tourist’, chances are you have just lost your job. Personally, I find it hard to imagine someone having the get up and go to move to a whole new country, just to claim benefits!
Thanks Roland. I suppose my question would be (and I don’t expect anyone to know the answer!) how many of those in the 60,000 would be caught in these proposed changes. Obviously those who had been working here for 6 months or more aren’t affected by these changes so could be an even smaller number.
I think everyone is pretty much in agreement that anti-fraud measures (whatever the person’s nationality) are to be supported!
Et tu Brute?
@Caron Lindsay
I can certainly see where you are coming from Caron, though I would posit that Nick does go strongly against that UKIP/Lab/Con narrative by flatly saying that free movement needs to remain. This morning the BBC ran that point as their headline on the story, though that sadly seems to have changed.
” I remember Farage promising a deluge of Romanian and Bulgarian’s earlier this year which did not materialise”
Au contraire old chum…
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/number-of-romanian-bulgarian-workers-surges-in-uk
Is a 13,000 increase really a “deluge” Simon?
It doesn’t quite approach the 29 million that Farage was talking about…
@simon
The article you cite says it was a rise of “13,000” – does that amount to a deluge?
@Daniel Henry
Jinx!
I’m with Caron on this: the message appears to be ‘immigration’s really good for the country, so we must do all we can to discourage it.’
And Clegg’s media plan for the week seems to be to insult Green voters and pander to UKIP ones, which would appear to be the sort of genius campaign plan you’d get if you were paying £1.20 for it, not £120k.
Caron, it appears to be a sad fact of life that in order to get the truth across to the popoulation at large – that being that the vast majority of immigrants come here to work – one has to face up to the “UKIP narrative” and make enough noise about what one would do about those minority of people who may be “benefit tourists”. However, Nick Clegg begins his article with firm condemnation of the UKIP and Tory narratives and reaffirms commitment to the freedom of movement of labour whilst also making it clear that this is not the same as “freedom of movement of people”. Nick isn’t feeding the narrative, he is condemning it.
I think it’s wholly right to restrict rights to benefits for those incomers to the UK until they have demonstrated that they are solidly entrenched in and committed to the labour market. Every European country has different systems of unemployment benefit, housing support and such-like, and I can’t see anything unreasonable or illiberal in increasing to six months the period within which immigrants cannot claim benefit, especially if similar restrictions already exist in other countries.
One could argue that this increased limit is, in effect, a “points-based” system by the back door, at least to a small degree. A six-month limit will surely discourage those who have not got firm job prospects or those looking for casual, insecure or temporary labouring. And discourage the wage-undercutting of indigenous labour? On the other hand, those immigrants of a professional nature with skills and a job offer in a permanent and secure industry – those that we need because there are skills shortages in specific sectors – will have little disincentive to coming here, knowing that this six-month limit is very unlikely to affect them at all?
There only remains one important point: all this endless talk about immigrants, caps, benefits and so on is just pointless discussion of the symptoms, not the cause. The cause is that there are too many people and too many people wanting to move around. Partly because there is too much inequality in the world and partly because economists are obsessed with playing the Biggest Ponzy Scheme Ever game. They can think of nothing more imaginative than to suggest that the economy must keep on growing and that we need more young people to pay the pensions of our ageing population. The absurdity and self-defeating nature of this is obvious, surely? All these immigrants will, eventually, adopt our way of life and reduce their birth rates and get older, resulting in pretty much the same skewed population figures but on a larger scale. It’s a Ponzy Scheme, and nothing less. All we’re doing is being ostrich-like and passing the buck onto our grandchildren.
Why can’t we make the economy BETTER without making it BIGGER?
It seems very easy to write something in a way that gets it placed in a queue to looked at by someone rather than appearing automatically here. My long post above was rewritten to eliminate a certain word to describe UKIP which was derogatory but not rude.
Clegg’s suggestions are quite limited. ATF explains that the media has skewed Clegg’s comments to seem to be in the opposite direction of his argument, which (to Martin Land is precisely why this should not have emerged before the Rochester byelection.
Although Clegg is probably suggesting amendments that conform with current obligations to fellow EU citizens, I agree with Caron and Jack’s misgivings. Pandering to UKIP has framed the EU issue to assume that the EU is bad and that the only issue is whether or not we would be worse off out of it. It is all very depressing.
Nick said “I’m with Caron on this: the message appears to be ‘immigration’s really good for the country, so we must do all we can to discourage it.’”
Sorry, but that makes no sense. Firstly, Nick – and indeed many others – are saying “Immigration is good but it needs to be regulated”. Secondly, they are mostly saying immigration is good because it is part of concept of freedom of movement of labour. Immigration for the sake of moving from one place to another for no particular reason is not necessarily good for anybody or anything.
To have something completely unregulated is just plain barmy. There are all sorts of things – business, money, buses, cars, holidays, television sets – which are all really good for the country or for each of us as individuals, but they are all regulated or controlled in some fashion.
To have a policy of freedom of movement which lives in denial of the possibility, however, remote, that some major catastrophe in the world could see a sudden influx of 50 million people into the UK on a perfectly legal basis, would be madness.
Way back in the 1970’s my brother decided to use the free movement principles to try his luck working in Germany. He had no job offer over there, he just wanted to try living in another country and Germany appealed to him. He got a job, settled in and stayed for a few years, contributing to the German economy.
After that he returned to the UK, fell in love and got married. He and his new wife decided that they both wanted to go to the continent so they went back to Germany. They had a child there and then moved to France where they had another child.
The whole family now live in France, working there, they have taken out French citizenship, the kids are French (both adults now and both working), and they consider themselves French having spent more of their lives there than in the UK.
How is this any different from anyone else deciding to come over here and try their luck?
I disagree very strongly with this whole benefits tourism angle and hope that this party at least, will not pander to the xenophobes in the UK.
I dislike the term ‘benefit tourism’, because it implies that large numbers of immigrants come to the UK to exploit the welfare system rather than to work. The evidence for this is weak: EU migrants comprise a little over 5 percent of the UK workforce but only 2.5 percent of Jobseekers Allowance claimants. We should be clear that most immigrants come here to work not ‘sponge off the state’.
However that does not mean the welfare system interacts with the labour market has no effect on levels of immigration. The UK’s relatively generous system of in-work benefits and tax credits – which differs fundamentally from the contributions-based systems in many other EU member states – plays a key role in making the UK an attractive place to migrate to. This is clearly illustrated in the graphic accompanying the article I link to below by Mats Persson.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11249200/A-just-way-to-manage-migration.html
It is clear from these figures that, while the relative success and dynamism of the British (and especially the London) economy has been a key ‘pull factor’ for migration, it is in-work benefits and tax credits that tip the balance into making it financially worthwhile. Once you strip these out not only Spaniards but also Poles would be financially better-off, on average, by working in their native countries. Bulgarians would still be better-off, but by a much smaller amount.
To state these facts is in no way to blame people for seeking to better their lives, an entirely human and understandable instinct. And it surely stands to reason that people who are prepared to up sticks, in many cases travel long distances and learn a foreign language are enterprising rather than workshy.
There is nothing inconsistent or illiberal in recognising this while also acknowledging the role of in-work benefits in changing the relative attractiveness of moving to the UK to do low-skilled (and therefore generally, in UK terms, low-paid) work.
In principle I believe the British government would be within its rights to change the arrangements for in-work benefits even under existing EU law, since this is classified as social policy and not a single market matter. Few other member states have tax credit arrangements similar to ours, instead basing access to benefits to be dependent on a prior period of contributions.
The real issue of principle is whether this would be discriminatory, in the event that the British government decides to persist with a needs-based (rather than contributions-based) system for its own citizens. In one sense it clearly would be, in that EU migrants would be treated differently from British citizens.
But if this is a matter of high moral principle, then I fail to see the distinction between EU and non-EU migrants; the logical extension of this line of reasoning is to extend the same rights to benefits and tax credits to non-EU migrants as well. Somehow I doubt this would be helpful in fostering a more positive climate for the immigration debate.
So we fall back on the argument that the very existence of a single market requires a uniform across-the-board welfare policy. Yet this is nonsense, as a cursory glance at the patchwork of different systems across Europe (some means-tested, some contributions-based, some a mix of the two) shows. It is a classic example of EU mission creep to claim that interference in domestic welfare systems is justified by the single market or the free movement principle.
Curtailing access to tax credits would obviously reduce the financial incentive for EU migrants to work in the UK, and thus could be expected to decrease the numbers coming here. Changing the rules on out-of-work benefits could have no more than a marginal effect because few immigrants claim these anyway.
Ultimately, though, it seems to me that migration is a natural counterpart to globalisation and the UK will continue to attract high levels of immigrants as long as we have a reasonably successful economy.
This is something to be welcomed and embraced, but it does bring challenges and the scale is obviously an issue for any party seeking election in the UK. If we deem it necessary to stem the inflow it is better to seek to do so by adjusting the incentives created by the current system than by applying a ‘temporary brake’ or an arbitrary numerical cap as the Tories have so unsuccessfully pursued for overall migration.
There seems to be a lot of confusion in the above discussion.
The first and central point made in Nick Clegg’s FT article is that a cap on EU migration, which Cameron is rumoured to be considering proposing, would be highly damaging to the openness of the UK economy.
He then proposes to work with other EU countries to tighten up the rules on some in-work benefits such as child benefit to ensure they are fair. This is something that has a lot of EU-wide support. He does not at any point suggest there is a problem of benefit tourism.
The media reportage of his article may have distorted people’s perceptions. But if you actually take the time to read it you will see that it mounts a distinctive defence of free movement. This is the key concluding paragraph:
“All this can be pursued without tearing up the freedom to move across Europe or threatening to pull out of the EU. The choice is clear. We can feed people ever more irresponsible claims about immigration, raising hopes only to dash them in the end. Or – far better – we can reform the rules to address people’s legitimate concerns, while safeguarding our open economy too.”
EU rules specifically exclude ‘benefit tourism’. Migrants between EU countries can only stay for 3 months if they are not financially self supporting.
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/here-–-again-–-the-real-facts-on-migration-and-the-rights-to-claim-benefits-in-the-eu/
The BBC site quotes Clegg
I am uneasy about this. Why should someone who pays UK tax not be entitled to UK benefits? Would this not be self evidently discriminatory? Furthermore, the extra £40 is surely well spent if it means that the child concerned does not need education, health and housing provision in the UK. It is the sort of policy that could easily have the opposite result to that intended.
I do think this proposition is following along with the Tory right and UKIP.
Paul Haydon
Great point. Thank you. I have amended our headline accordingly.
Nick Clegg’s proposals, as outlined in the FT article, seem to be largely peripheral to the issue of financial incentive, although much would depend on the detail of the changes he is seeking to the way Universal Credit would apply to migrants. But his other measures are unlikely to satisfy anyone, since they fundamentally misdiagnose the issue/problem (delete as applicable) as one of abuse rather than one of economic incentives and relative net take-home pay levels across countries.
I think we should insist the entire population of the EU come here I feel sure if we build high rise we can have room for us to move about still. We can then use a ferry system so that farming can take priority in say France
We could all work a shorter working week say 4 hours take turns at eating and using energy this will also reduce our emission output win win
I can see this will be an election winner and just needs us adding the residents from the entire TTIP area.
I am sorry to resort to sarcasm freedom is fine but and its a big but a point comes that you reach saturation point
Politicians keep saying the people of the UK worry on benefit tourism I have a sneaky feeling it’s total numbers that causes concern. We started with a drip now it’s a torrent
The general public perceive there is a problem. So there is a problem. They won’t believe anyone shouting there is no problem, even when accompanied by evidence, because Nige got in first. So you either have no policy and get attacked for it, or have a simple to understand and sensible policy that people think is reasonable but that will have little impact because the problem is just a false perception. Clegg seems to have taken the latter approach and whilst it doesn’t redeem him by any stretch it seems the right choice.
The key problem is that Nigel has the clearest and most convincing narrative – simply, that Britain cannot control immigration from the EU unless it leaves the EU.
Never mind that leaving the EU would be a nightmare. Never mind that if we did have control, we might very well find that it was in our own best interests to allow net immigration from the rest of the EU. Nigel’s point is, essentially, that sovereignty is a good thing in itself, and that subjection to Brussels is a bad thing. It is an appeal to old-fashioned British patriotism. It is the control that matters to Kippers, much more than what is actually to be done with that control. And for those who don’t think much of old-fashioned patriotism – well, what exactly is good about a total loss of control? Compromise within Europe – yes, that’s defensible. Being told by Brussels bureaucrats that Britain is just plain wrong and that what they say goes – no, that’s not defensible.
It follows that what the Lablibservative parties are doing, which is to seek marginal reductions in EU immigration by the changes in benefits policy over which Britain does have some control, is not going to satisfy the Kippers. All that the Lablibservatives will achieve is to reinforce the Kipper view that immigration is Britain’s worst problem (which of course is far from the case, objectively), and to demonstrate that Lablibservatives don’t understand British patriotism.
How can we dig ourselves out of this hole? Well, first of all, change the narrative, and get away from the numbers game. Point out that immigration creates winners and losers, and that the rich who benefit from access to cheap Polish plumbers should be taxed to recompense the indigenous poor who cannot get jobs in plumbing. Take up Alex Sabine’s point that Britain has itself mismanaged its payment of in-work benefits, in a way that actively attracts EU migrants at the taxpayer’s expense, and is nobody’s fault but our own government’s.
But secondly, also be prepared to confront the EU. That does not mean threatening to leave, but it does mean gently pointing out – as John Major did – that in an equal partnership, both sides compromise. Free movement is what one side believe in, the ability to place some controls on movement is what the other side believe in. Neither side should expect to get away without some measure of compromise.
I hope we will make it are our policy that we will restrict in-work benefits including housing benefit. I would say immigrants can only receive in-work benefits after they have earned more than £19,700 for 48 months. I picked the figure of £19,700 because it was the medium amount earned by two adults with two children in the bottom decile according to figures released with the budget this year. I prefer 48 months rather than 2 years so those 48 months can be spread out over more than 2 years. Hopefully this would ensure that the public would know that those who came here couldn’t be here for the benefits and would only get benefits once they have paid taxes for 48 months.
This would be a move in the direction of encouraging higher wages and reducing the need for the government to subsidise wages. As liberals why would we want to support subsidising wages as a general policy?
@ Caron Lindsay
“If there is no evidence of a problem, why put so much effort into fixing it?”
According to government figures 415,000 foreign nationals receive £5 billion in tax credits. I couldn’t find out how much they receive in housing benefit.
@ David
But secondly, also be prepared to confront the EU. That does not mean threatening to leave, but it does mean gently pointing out – as John Major did – that in an equal partnership, both sides compromise. Free movement is what one side believe in, the ability to place some controls on movement is what the other side believe in. Neither side should expect to get away without some measure of compromise.
At last John Major is correct and unless major parties stop telling the electorate children should be seen not heard we will end up leaving, this is not the kippers fault it’s telling us we can have a referendum but only when and if you say so
David Cameron is correct what are you afraid of
Disgusted by Nick Clegg. The principle of free movement depends upon non-discrimination between citizens from different parts of the EU. I lived and worked in Belgium, paid Belgian taxes and received Belgian benefits on the same terms as Belgians. Any rule change should respect that principle. I wasn’t happy when Labour pandered to UKIP. I’m spitting blood that my party leader is doing the same.
It would be lovely to have an edit function. My mistake when I wrote 48 months I meant 24 months.
Amalric27th Nov ’14 – 3:37pm
The difficulty in providing an edit function for LDV posts appears to be at least as intractable as those facing the party under NC’s leadership 🙁
David: Surely the principle of free movement implies a lack of restriction on movement, not a particular entitlement to benefits or the lack thereof.
In an ideal world I would rather not have state control over people’s movements, whether they currently live in the EU or outside it. I think migration is a natural counterpart to the globalisation of capital and ideas, that the benefits generally outweigh the costs, and that the process of cherry-picking immigrants whether based on quotas or points-based criteria has all the disadvantages and arbitrariness of other economic controls. (Indeed, one of the ironies of this subject is that those who are keenest on curbing immigration usually denounce attempts by the state to plan economic activity in any other context, and many of those who oppose immigration controls as unworkable or counter-productive rarely let such considerations stop them when it comes to restricting foreign investment/takeovers or capital movements or the domestic labour market. To me they are two sides of the same coin.)
However, I recognise that completely unrestricted immigration is not acceptable to the British (or probably any other) electorate, nor is it likely to be in the foresseable future. Therefore democratic politics requires at least the legal power and capability of exercising some control over numbers and possibly also the right to distinguish between skilled and unskilled labour (skill shortages being one of the more widely accepted justifications for immigration).
We already do these things in relation to non-EU migration: indeed we are putting this category of immigration into an artificial and economically damaging straitjacket because of the need to overcompensate for the lack of control over the EU category.
Admittedly this has been in (futile) pursuit of an ill-conceived Tory net migration target, which I accept that Lib Dem politicians and members have opposed. However, while they oppose the target per se, they are not arguing for higher immigration overall since they realise how unpopular the current – historically high – level is. They are hoping that by being non-committal and talking about clamping down on abuse (real or perceived) they can gloss over the implication of higher numbers. This is disingenuous. Either they should accept their inability to control numbers and (given current trends) the likely increase that would follow under their policies, or they should propose credible alternative ways of managing down the numbers without resorting to a crude cap.
Also, this rhetoric about ‘disrimination’ and breaching fundamental rights seems to me to be overdone and logically incoherent. I don’t see many Lib Dems campaigning to scrap the current points-based system for non-EU migration or to scrap work permits in favour of unrestricted free movement. Nor are they calling for non-EU migrants to be eligible for the same in-work benefits and tax credits as EU migrants. On an ethical level I fail to see why this discriminatory treatment is apparently fine, yet it would be ethically outrageous to put EU migrants on the same footing.
If the principle is that all immigrants should receive the same benefits as UK citizens, then this should apply across the board and not just to EU migrants. Alternatively, we could harmonise the arrangements so that the eligibility criteria were the same as they currently are for non-EU migrants; that way they would be different from those for UK citizens but would apply equally to all immigrants regardless of origin. In terms of non-discrimination either of these approaches would be just as equitable, and arguably more so, than the status quo. And yet the status quo is apparently inviolate because changing it might lead to a confrontation with the EU.
Support Nick on this one
Freedom of movement should be a basic human right which the EU should be proud of and uphold. Remember its just 25 years since the Berlin Wall came down. Everyone believed in freedom of movement then.
Access to benefits is a different thing. It is reasonable to expect people to have lived here a while before getting housing or family benefits. It is reasonable to prevent housing queue jumping by immigrants over locals. It is reasonable to have a living minimum wage which is strictly enforced and pays employees enough for them to be self sufficient