World | UK
Migrant workers free to claim full benefits
Rules restricting Eastern Bloc countries' citizens from accessing welfare system set to lapse on May 1
- Daily Mail
- Published: 00:00 March 5, 2011
- Shoppers on Oxford Street, London. Retailers have become increasingly attentive to the needs of Chinese, Middle Eastern and Russian visitors, who are forecast to spend nearly £1 billion in the capital’s shops in 2011.
- Image Credit: Rex Features
London: Hundreds of thousands of migrants will gain full access to Britain's generous benefits system within weeks.
When eight former Eastern Bloc countries joined the EU in 2004, rules were put in place to restrict access to welfare.
But these rules lapse on May 1 and cannot be renewed, raising fears of mass benefits tourism.
After just three months residency in the country, eastern European migrants will be able to claim hundreds of pounds a week in jobseeker's allowance, council tax and housing benefits.
‘Huge mistake'
Previously they had to work for a full year before being able to claim welfare.
Critics said Labour made a ‘huge mistake' when agreeing that the rules would last for just seven years and called safeguards paper thin.
Since the EU expanded in 2004, Britain has experienced its largest ever wave of migration — despite official predictions that just 13,000 workers would want to move here.
Those searching for jobs have been required to pay £90 (Dh538) and sign up with the Worker Registration Scheme, run by the Home Office and Department for Work and Pensions. They were then denied access to benefits until they had completed a full year of work.
More than a million have joined the scheme and figures suggest there are some 625,000 still in work in the UK.
But from May migrants from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic will simply have to pass a habitual residency test — showing they have been looking for work for three months.
The only other requirement is that they show benefits officials where they live, prove they want to settle here and show any employment history.
At that point they can get access to council tax rebate, housing benefit worth hundreds of pounds a week and jobseeker's allowance of £65 a week.
The change in rules will also lead to a rise in the number of eastern Europeans living in Britain who receive child benefit for children still living in their home country.
Figures last year showed there are already more than 32,000 children living in eastern Europe whose parents receive child benefit in Britain. Under EU rules, child benefit is paid to all parents in the UK, even if their children have stayed in their home countries.
During the recession the numbers coming in from the so-called A8 countries dropped off.
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