Immigration

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, on my noble friend’s first question: yes, this is one of the benefits of the free movement of labour around the community, so if one country is doing better than another we can get a flow of labour to equalise things. On the second point, on benefit levels, it is not my responsibility to answer for the Home Office on migration issues.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, amid all the unpleasantness in parts of the media over the past few weeks about Romanians and Bulgarians, has the noble Earl had the time to see the study recently published by a team from University College London, which shows that immigrants from the EU over the past 10 years have contributed far more in taxes and national insurance contributions than they have consumed in public services and in benefits, unlike the position of the native population? In other words, they have supplied us with a substantial financial and fiscal surplus, to the benefit of every taxpayer in this country. Is there not every probability that hard-working Romanians and Bulgarians will follow in the same footsteps?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord’s last question is yes. On his first question, I handled business on that particular report. I cannot remember the precise details, but I broadly agree with the noble Lord’s thrust.