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Migrants claim £170m in benefits as number of arrivals increases to 800,000
Last updated at 14:45pm on 28.02.08The massive influx of eastern European immigrant workers to Britain has topped 800,000 in the four years since Poland and seven other former communist states joined the European Union.
In the last 12 months, the cost of paying benefits to the newcomers has more than doubled to an estimated £170million a year, with 145,000 immigrants now claiming state handouts.
The Government predicted 13,000 arrivals a year when opting to open Britain's labour markets to millions of new EU citizens - while most other countries imposed restrictions.
But the scale of immigration has proved to be 15 times greater.
In 2007, another 214,510 eastern Europeans registered to work in Britain, equal to 600 arrivals a day.
Yesterday, UK business leaders said employers would continue to welcome the new arrivals because their work ethic is "so much better than domestic workers" who suffer from a "skills shortage and increasing welfare dependency".
The figures published yesterday do not include self-employed eastern Europeans such as plumbers or builders, or 30,000 from Romania and Bulgaria which joined the EU later, meaning that the real total of new arrivals is likely to be well over a million in four years - equivalent to a city the size of Birmingham.
Eastern European immigrants can claim benefits after working here for 12 months - including child benefit for children who have stayed with relatives back in their home countries.
The Home Office acknowledges that benefits claims are increasing but insists they "remain low".
The numbers in receipt of benefits more than doubled last year, rising by 109 per cent in 12 months to 145,000.
Child benefit is the most common payment, now paid to 88,000 eastern European families, double the figure a year earlier, at an estimated cost of £72million a year.
The next most popular benefit is tax credits, claimed by 51,518 immigrants and costing taxpayers around £70million a year.
Jobseekers allowance and income support are claimed by 3,385 and 1,373 respectively, cost-more than £14million per year, while 178 eastern European immigrants now claim state pension credit, worth £114 per week, costing more than £670,000 a year.
Just over 1,000 are receiving help for homelessness.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the arrival of so many immigrants meant that "our housing and public service infrastructure have come under severe pressure with local authorities and council tax payers having to shoulder the burden".
Local authorities in some areas have warned that public services such as schools are coming under intense strain.
The Local Government Association urged ministers to set up a contingency fund to help councils cope.
Chairman Sir Simon Milton said migration was benefiting Britain economically, but added: "The problem is that the money being generated isn't necessarily finding its way back down to the local level."
David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "Employers up and down the country tell me they take on migrant workers because their work ethic is so much better than domestic workers."
Reader views (15)
Recently I spoke with a single ,young polish mother of two...She came in the uk couple of years ago and she said straight that she came in the uk for benefits and that she gets around 30k per year on this. Thats incredible. I work full-time,including Saturdays and I get no more than 18k.Why she should be paid double than I am paid after 50 hours of work?
I`ve sold my car.I couldn't afford it.She can afford.
Dear readers: Have you notice that the people on benefits are much better dressed than those who are working hard,are driving more expensive cars than you do and go often on holidays? If you are in benefits you suppose to have a modes life . In my country people on benefits hardly can afford to buy food not a car.
Cut down the benefits and you will be one step close to get rid of the recession.
- Sasha, fr
Why is anybody surprised? Every single person in an EU country can come here and claim benefit, that is the law. And the benefits are the most generous in Europe. So why the surprise? My only answer to it all is that every single English person born and bred here, especially for generations, should also work the system to their advantage, stop being honest and moaning whilst paying taxes and seek out all the dodges. I do it, and am better off for it, and everything I do is legal.
- Pam, london
I am English and my daughter in-law is Polish. She's lived here for 11yrs and has seen this country change beyond recognition. She feels that this country is a laughing stock abroad and cannot understand why we would destroy ourselves like this. She met my son in the bank where they work and we love her to bits. She speaks 4 languages and is asset to the UK 'but' she feels we have gone too far with immigration, and thinks if we don't stop now no one will benefit in the end. Also Poland has lost it's young people to us, meaning they are now allowing people in from outside the EU. Something Poles will not put up with.
- Sylvie Howard, Ilford Essex
All these native Britons accusing here the immigrants of sponging seem to be unaware that no immigrant is entitled to any benefits unless they have worked at least one full tax year in the United Kingdom? Could they be made to sit for a Citizenship Exam, because it certainly looks like they could do with some lessons in the law of the land?
- Mark, London
Unless you have worked for six years, you get no benefits whatsoever. No National Health, no home, no dole, no children's allowance, no nothing. This would stop our own scroungers and those who seek to come here to take money that they haven't put into the pot - end of! No-one has got the the guts to do this though, as all the do-gooders would hold their hands up and cry how barbaric to do this. Sorry, but happy to be Prime Minister and carry this out, and I would sleep very well at night.
- Sue, Orpington, Kent
There are too many people in this country. End of. In 5 years time we will reap the whirlwind that we have sown.
- Grim Reaper, London
My husband was out of work for 18 months with a serious knee injury - he didn't get one penny from the government - because I earned too much - if we were not married, he would have got the lot. I earn less than £18,000 per year and 2 of us had to live on that. After bills, rent etc. we were left with less than £100 per month to live on. It's about time this country started to look after it's own.
- Jane, Middlesex
I'm English, and I agree with the comment about the work ethic of Eastern Europeans compared with many Brits. I know that many people will be angry with this, but just as there are some hard working Brits, it's unfair to make sweeping statements about Eastern Europeans. Anyone who can work should work, whether they're British or not.
- Mike, UK
No wonder the genuine disabled are going to be treated like criminals to 'get them off benefit', this is where their money is going.
- Blind Pugh, Addlestone, UK
And the government want to force the indigenous population off benefits. But its ok we were only born in this country, I wish I could go to another country and be pampered like royalty.
- Steven Patrick M, London, UK
The majority of eastern European migrants are willing and able to work. However, the minority who are keen to sponge should not be encouraged to move here; I would suggest that benefits be made inaccessible to people who have been in Britain for less than a year.
- Rachel, Glamorgan
Didn't we have enough home grown scrounging talent? Did we really need to import more?
- Jimbob, Kensington
Welcome to Britain, we're all off to a decent country.
- Bob Inupandahn, Clitheroe
And not one of them deserves a penny of that money. They have done nothing for this country so deserve nothing in return. It should be made clear that they cannot come to this country unless they have a job and somewhere to live.
- Minime, South East England
Madness why do we allow this when this country's infrastructure, health and education are crumbling because of the failures to plan and maintain? We have got this all around the wrong way, when will this country wake up and protect the people they are elected to protect?
- Ian Makin, twickenham
