Benefit Entitlement (Restriction) Bill

Karl Turner Excerpts

Friday 17th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[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?

[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.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I intend to speak only briefly to put on the record my full support for my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and his excellent Bill. I am proud to be one of its sponsors.

I had always thought that the concept that benefits in this country should be paid only to UK citizens was not particularly contentious. I thought that everybody across the political divide agreed with that. If the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) wants to say that he does not support that principle—as a shadow Minister, he must speak with some authority on behalf of the Labour party as a whole—he is at liberty to do so.

If the hon. Gentleman does not think that there should be a restriction on the payment of benefits to people who are not UK citizens, he will presumably campaign for every non-EU citizen who comes into this country to have full access to the benefits system, unless he thinks that people from outside the EU are lesser people than those who are from within the EU. Perhaps he wants to discriminate against people from south Asia when they come into this country. In his interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), he seemed to be suggesting that all the people who come in from the EU are decent coves and should have full access to our benefits system, but that all those who come to this country from outside the EU are foul, swindling people whom we should stop at every turn. That appeared to be the thrust of what he was saying.

I do not subscribe to that view. I think that this country should treat all people who are not UK citizens exactly the same, irrespective of where they are from. It should not matter whether they are from India, Pakistan, South Africa or south America, or from Poland, Bulgaria, France or Germany. As far as I am concerned, we should treat them all the same. To me, they are all non-UK nationals. We should not be picking and choosing which countries have better people than others. The hon. Gentleman might want to go down that line, as he indicated in his interventions, but I do not. I think that we should treat them all the same.

[Karl Turner]

The hon. Gentleman knows for a fact that that is not what I was suggesting. I was making the point, which I think was a valid one, that the suggestion by the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) that vast numbers of people are coming here with the sole motivation of claiming benefits is just not true.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is leading with his chin on these matters. He is getting out increasingly bigger spades with which to dig himself into a hole. He has now suggested that nobody from the EU comes here to claim benefits, but that everybody who comes here from outside the EU does so to claim benefits and that we need to restrict access to benefits for them. If he is not saying that, presumably his argument is that we should allow a free-for-all of benefits for anyone from anywhere around the world. That is certainly not an argument that I support, and I do not think that the majority of my constituents would support it.