Lord Spicer
Main Page: Lord Spicer (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Spicer's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bates
We are not talking about restricting the free movement of labour—we are talking about restricting the free movement of benefits. I have already listed a number of countries, and Germany is a prime one, which have particular concerns on this that are shared. That includes some of the Nordic countries as well. Some of those countries also had transitional arrangements put in place when we enlarged with the A10 countries in 2004, which the previous Government did not put in place. That led to the major problem that we are now living under.
Lord Spicer (Con)
My Lords, in the context of this Question, and the previous one, how do we reform the European court?
Lord Bates
I was going to say that that is a question for another day. That will of course be part of any wider negotiation, but let us recognise that in the case brought by the German Government before the European court about benefit tourism—the Dano case—the court actually upheld the decision, which is something that we and the German Government welcome.