Europe: Renegotiation

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, mentioned primarily migration and the problem hitting the whole of Europe at the moment. I see no reason why we would stop our continuing work, and particularly our DfID budget, helping those migrants—preferably upstream, where we can stop them moving towards Europe in the first place.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Smith said, none of us wants any abuse of free movement and benefits. Will the noble Earl confirm that the statistic much cited today, that 40% of EU migrants claim benefits, largely means tax credits and possibly child tax credits? We are not talking about scroungers on the dole but working EU migrants. That is what this is meant to be about. Could the noble Earl kindly explain a little more on this? The Prime Minister still talks about a four-year wait but there are hints that other solutions could be possible. For instance, does the Prime Minister mean codifying the very helpful recent judgments by the Court of Justice of the European Union? Could the noble Earl signpost us to an alternative to a frankly unachievable objective?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, mentioned the detail of my right honourable friend’s speech earlier today. He said:

“We now know that, at any one time, around 40% of all recent European Economic Area migrants are supported by the UK benefits system … with each family claiming on average around £6,000 a year of in-work benefits alone”.

On the noble Baroness’s other point, relating to the four-year restriction, I will read out the whole paragraph I have here, if the House allows. It says:

“Our objective is to better control migration from within the EU. There are obviously different ways in which we could achieve that. We … can do that by reducing the incentives offered by our welfare system”.

That is why we set out the proposal that you must contribute before you can claim. We understand that others across the European Union also have concerns about this. That is why we say to them: “Put forward alternative proposals that deliver the same results”. We are open to different ways of dealing with this issue, as long as we do just that and agree new measures that will reduce the numbers coming here.