The Quiet Man is turning up the volume. We wish he wouldn't.
IDS has an op-ed in the Times (£) today in which he promises to take on the people who wish to come to Britain “simply because of our benefits”.
“Freedom of movement must be about work – it was never meant to assist benefit tourism,” the tough-cum-quiet man writes.
It’s fairly clear what Mr Duncan Smith and the Tories are trying to do here. In talking up the problem of benefit tourism, the Conservatives are trying to outflank UKIP from the right. Because the government is relatively restricted as to what it can do to control EU migration to Britain – freedom of movement and all that – the Tory party likes to make out that benefit tourism is a significant problem.
That way it can pretend to be doing something – anything – about immigration.
In reality, however, in singling out so-called benefit tourism IDS may as well be wasting his breath, for the number of people who travel to the UK to claim benefits is statistically insignificant.
According to a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report from 2011, 6.4 per cent of those claiming working aged benefits were non-uk nationals, meaning British nationals were two-and-a-half times more likely to be claiming working age benefits than non-UK nationals.
This graph from Fullfact demonstrates a similar trend right across the board.
In every category UK nationals are more likely to claim benefits than foreign migrants.
“Of the 2 million net migrants to the UK from the eight eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004, just 13,000 people have claimed jobseeker’s allowance (JSA). This figure was not disputed by No 10.” The Guardian, March 26 2013
It just isn’t that easy to be a benefit tourist. Something called the habitual residence test, which was introduced in 1994 by John Major’s government, means that before being allowed to claim any benefits in the UK immigrants are interviewed about their reasons for entering the country, how long they have been here, as well as their work status and history.
As a rule a person would need to have been in Britain for at least one to three months before they are able to claim any kind of benefit.
There is always the possibility that someone could come to the UK, spend all their money during the first month or so before parking themselves on benefits. However considering the government’s rhetoric around welfare reform – that it is ‘getting tough’ with those whose ‘curtains are still drawn at midday’ – this seems unlikely. If British nationals can no longer ‘languish’ on benefits, where is the evidence to suggest that foreign nationals will find it any easier to do so?
In sum, today’s op-ed by IDS is pure hot air. The Quiet Man is turning up the volume. We wish he wouldn’t.
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.
63 Responses to “Iain Duncan Smith says he’s going to stop benefit tourism. What benefit tourism?”
LB
Or Ed Ball’s a liar.
For example. The state debt. Why does Ed Balls lie about that? In particular, the idea that pensions aren’t a debt. That includes the state pension as well as the civil service pensions. Off the books, because they have no intention of them being paid.
So if you’re a public sector worker, you’re going to be shafted.
After all why would Ed be saying he wants a cap on welfare, and then that pensions are welfare.
LB
Can’t you read? Look at the post from Dave Roberts where he said there had been an outbreak of small pox.
So not only don’t you get logic, but you can’t read either.
GO
“6.4 per cent of people claiming working-age benefits were estimated to have been non-UK nationals.”
Other way round: 6.4% of non-UK nationals were claiming working-age benefits.
GO
Two pretty huge points you’re overlooking:
Firstly, that 11.5k is an average across the whole population. Or, looked at another way, it’s the average annual spend across the lifetime of an average individual – someone who spends an average amount of time in a state school, claims a state pension for the average number of years, requires an average amount of NHS treatment and state-funded social care, receives average amounts of in- and out-of-work benefits, etc. For most people, there are going to be periods when they’re net beneficiaries of the system (during childhood/youth and retirement, and perhaps during periods of sickness and/or unemployment) and other periods when they’re net contributors to the system (during their healthy working years). For obvious reasons, then, a migrant worker spending a few years in the UK as a healthy adult is far more likely to make a net contribution during his time in the UK as a whole than someone who is born here and dies here.
Secondly, your financial contribution to the system is not limited to the personal tax you pay. If you do productive work that adds, say, £30k to UK GDP, 40% or so of that (£12k) can be expected to end up going to the Treasury one way or another. Whether that’s through taxes paid on your wages, on your boss’s profits, or on consumption of the goods you produce, is neither here nor there.
GO
…e.g. if I pay a Polish widgetmaker £10k to transform £5k of raw materials into £45k of widgets, the taxman sees c. 20% of my £30k profit (= £6k) plus 20% of the VATable value of the widgets (= £9k). The fact that the migrant widgetmaker himself pays no income tax is neither here nor there: *the value of what he personally produces* is still being taxed.