Benefit Entitlement (Restriction) Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Friday 17th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I certainly agree that it is about being sensible, but I am not sure the solution lies in trying to change our benefits system. Surely, we, as a sovereign country, should be able to decide what benefits system we want for our own people and should not have to try to tailor it so that it cannot be abused under EU rules.

The bigger problem was referred to by Dominic Lawson also in an article in last week’s edition of The Sunday Times. He wrote that

“although the great majority of east European migrants are entrepreneurially seeking the much higher wages available in the richer nations, a proportion will be welfare tourists.”

He then referred to the

“point made many years ago by Milton Friedman, who believed in open borders: he asserted that you can have a generous welfare state or open borders, but not both…There is no doubt that free and open immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state, but in a welfare state, it is a different story; the supply of immigrants will become infinite.”

Indeed, that is the concern of people in this country—that the supply of immigrants is becoming infinite. We look in the Government statistics for the numbers, but again we find that they fudge the figures and do not even collect the raw material.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that the number of migrants coming into the country and the consequent increase in the supply of labour has had an effect on the cost of labour, resulting in the necessity of the introduction of things such as the minimum wage?

[Mr Chope]

As my hon. Friend knows, I have never been an enthusiast for the minimum wage. Indeed, further down today’s Order Paper is my Employment Opportunities Bill, which would enable people to opt out of it. I am glad to see the Front-Bench spokesman agreeing with that.

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[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about public relations; the Government have to be seen to be doing something, but they are constrained by the current state of European Union law, which will prevent them from being able to take any action against people after they have been in this country for more than three months. That is why the Government are making a great virtue of saying, “We are going to get really tough on people in the first three months they are here.” However, they are not emphasising that once those people have been here for three months the world is their oyster and they have free access to all our taxpayer-funded benefits.

[Mr Nuttall]

Is my hon. Friend aware of any change in EU regulations that has prevented the three-month rule from existing until now? If he is not aware of any such change, does he share my concern that that rule has not always been implemented in the UK?

[Mr Chope]

As I shall go on to discuss, the problem is that EU law in this area is evolving and changing. That is largely being done through regulation, but it is also occurring through decisions taken by the unelected judges in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. They are, in effect, giving an interpretation of what was originally a free movement directive—everybody would have gone along with that, because one core element in the European Economic Community was that people should be able to go from one country to another and take up employment there. Following the successive treaties, directives and regulations, the interpretation now is of people having a right to go to claim benefits in any country in the European Union once they have been there for more than three months.

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[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I rise to support the Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on bringing it before the House. I am delighted to be one of its sponsors. As he said, it addresses a matter that is in the news a great deal at the moment—it could not be more topical. I think it demonstrates the real difficulty that the House sometimes has in connecting with people’s problems, because of the way our processes work. I will speak as briefly as I can, because I am anxious, as are my constituents, that the measures should become law as soon as possible.

I hope that the Minister will say that the Bill enjoys the full support of Her Majesty’s Government, but I fear that in reality he might find it difficult to offer that, no matter how much he might wish to, because of the situation we find ourselves in—[Interruption.] I see that he thinks that I am on the right lines. The problem is not with him—he is a very good chap—but with the position the House finds itself in as a result of our membership of European Union. It is really about that relationship.

There are two things to consider in the Bill. There is the meat of the Bill itself, although I will not go into the detail, because it is very straightforward. It can be summed up in one simple sentence: British benefits for British citizens. That is really what it boils down to. It is not rocket science.

We know this is a very popular measure. As my hon. Friend mentioned, Lord Ashcroft has scientifically tested the will of the nation on a number of the measures in Bills that several of us had proposed at the start of this Session. His polling company conducted a poll on 28 and 30 June 2013—bizarrely, it covered 2,013 adults; I think that is purely coincidence—in which a representative sample of the British people were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with certain propositions in those Bills. It asked specifically about the two proposals in this Bill: first, recording the nationality of a claimant; and secondly, restricting welfare benefits to UK citizens.

The respondents were not only asked whether they supported the proposals but split into two groups. The first group were told they that the measures had been suggested by some unspecified people and the second group were told that they were being proposed by Conservative politicians. Seventy-one per cent. of people in sample A—those who thought the measures had been proposed by unspecified people—agreed with the proposition that we should record the nationality of benefits claimants. The negative Tory effect, as it was called, was minus 3%, in that even if people were told that those nasty Conservatives were making the proposal, 68% still said, “I’m not bothered who puts it forward—it’s still a damn good idea and I want to support it.” Lord Ashcroft then took into account the people who said, “Frankly, I’m not that interested in politics and I can’t give a view—I neither agree nor disagree”; he called it the “Meh” effect. Twenty-one per cent. of respondents said they were not bothered either way, which, if one takes into account the 71% of those in sample A, leaves just 8% of the population disagreeing with the proposition that it is a good idea that we should record someone’s nationality when they wish to apply for a national insurance number.

The proposition on restricting welfare benefits to UK citizen, which is perhaps more important, was, I am pleased to say, even more popular, because 74% of people in sample A said they agreed with it, and 70% still thought it was a good idea even when they were told that it was being put forward by Conservative politicians. The figure for people who neither agreed nor disagreed—the “Meh” effect—was 13%.

These are enormously popular propositions, whichever way one looks at it. Our own anecdotal experience will tell us that if we go out into the street and discuss this with people they will say, “Of course British benefits should be paid to British citizens.” Nothing annoys people more than the thought of the taxes that they have paid as a result of hard work being paid to claimants who have not contributed to the system at all and have just come to this country saying that they are looking for work. Frankly, they are bound to say that; they are hardly likely to say, “I’ve come here because you’ve got a better benefits system.” I have no doubt, to be fair, that it may well be true that most people come here looking for work, but that does not negate the fact that the overwhelming majority of the British people think that British benefits should go only to British citizens.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has said, this House is now, in essence, unable to deal with this matter, as is the case with so many other issues.

[Philip Davies]

We restrict access to benefits for people who come to this country from outside the European Union, so the idea that foreign nationals should not have access to our benefits does not appear to be controversial. Everybody seems to agree that we should restrict benefits for people from outside the EU, so is there any reason at all why the same principle should not apply to non-British citizens from within the EU?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think that this is one reason why there is so much antagonism towards our membership of the European Union. This House is impotent in these matters. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has said—I fear the Minister will say the same thing—the most we can do is restrict for three months the benefits of people who come here from other EU countries. To be frank, that is neither here nor there. It is no wonder that people are not satisfied with that response. Of course, they agree with it—it is better than nothing and we agree entirely that we should do it—but it is nowhere near being a sufficiently robust response to the complaints we hear every day of the week, such as, “I know very well that there are people living down the road who have moved here and made no contribution to the system, and yet they are claiming benefits.” I do not think that making them wait for a few weeks before they can claim will be enough to assuage people’s concerns.

I do not want to go down another avenue, but, to be honest, our relationship with the EU goes to the very heart of the problem, and unless we deal with that relationship, we will not be able to solve the problem. When this country joined the EU, it was not, of course, the European Union, but the Common Market. People thought that they were joining a free trade area. It had nothing to do with lots of people coming here and claiming benefits. As my hon. Friend has said, over the years we have seen a general competence creep on the part of the EU. It has gradually taken over more and more competences: more and more things have become its responsibility rather than the responsibility of this Chamber. It is, therefore, no wonder that people feel that it is not worth voting in elections and say, “There’s no point, because you can’t change anything.”

We have yet to hear what the Government’s red lines are in renegotiating our EU terms of membership, but such matters should be brought back within the control of this Parliament. I venture to suggest that if any party put that in its manifesto, it would be extremely well received and very popular, as shown by the evidence that I have given. The popular nature of the measure would be demonstrated if we put it in a manifesto and voted on it in a general election, knowing that it could be brought into law and that its introduction could not be stopped by the European Union.

If the measure is prevented by our membership of the EU and that fact is not changed in any renegotiation, the British people would be absolutely right to vote to leave the EU so that we can get back control over such matters as deciding who we pay benefits to. That is the heart of the matter. The measure is popular and would receive widespread support right across this country. I will not detain the House with the details, but the poll shows that it is supported by all age groups, sections of the public and parts of the country. It is absolutely wrong that this House has no power to bring in the measure because of our membership of the European Union, which is really what this boils down to. There is no other reason why we cannot do it; we are stopped from doing it by being members of the European Union.

I hope that the Minister will say something different—that he entirely agrees that the measure is popular and that it will receive the Government’s full support—but I fear that will not be the case. Nevertheless, the Bill has my full support. It will receive if not universal, then very widespread support from my constituents, and I wish it well.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has suggested that some people come to this country purely to claim benefits. Frankly, I disagree with that contention, but will he estimate what percentage of people coming from the European Union do so purely to claim benefits?

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[Mr Nuttall]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point in that we can only estimate or guess, because nobody keeps a check or monitors the situation: there are no figures. We do not know the percentage, because we do not check. That is why I accept that if people are asked why they come to this country, nobody says, “Just to claim your benefits”; they all say, “I’ve come here to look for work, of course.”

[Karl Turner]

Frankly, I think that the figure is probably zero. Does the hon. Gentleman agree, because he can only guess, can he not?

[Mr Nuttall]

We do not know. I suspect that the figure is probably not zero, but some people will do so. Human nature being what it is, some people will want to work the system, just as there are some in this country who want to work the system and bend the rules to get the best deal they can. To be fair to them, the current EU rules permit those people to come here. They will say, “I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not committing any offences. I want to improve my English language skills”—those skills are very useful to have—so they can give lots of reasons for wanting to come to this country. When they are asked, I suspect 0% of them would say, “Well, I’ve come here to claim benefits”, but the reality is that they are doing so. It does not matter what they say; what matters is what is actually happening.

Frankly, if there is no problem, it does not matter if the Bill passes, does it? If nobody is coming here for that purpose, the Bill will not matter. However, when they are asked, the vast majority of people think that there is a problem that this Parliament should be doing something about. It is a travesty that, because we are members of the European Union, we cannot do anything about it. As I say, I hope that the Bill receives a fair wind from the Government and that it finds its way speedily on to the statute book.