BUMPER welfare handouts have made Britain an “extremely attractive destination” for migrants from eastern Europe, a scathing report on the benefit system warned last night.


Research showed that foreign workers from within the EU can potentially pocket hundreds of pounds a week from a string of benefits as soon as they arrive in the UK.

Latest figures show around £42million a year in child benefit payments is handed out to migrant families whose children do not even live in Britain.

Critics fear the bonanza could wreck David Cameron’s pledge to cut annual net immigration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands.

The role that Britain’s benefits system – hugely generous by international standards – has on encouraging mass immigration was laid bare in a report from the population think-tank MigrationWatch.

Researchers pointed out that while newcomers are not immediately entitled to claim jobless benefits they can still pocket extra income from child, housing and council tax benefit as well as the tax credit system.With the sums paid out dwarfing average wages in Poland and other new EU nations, the welfare system was providing a huge incentive for migrants to target Britain.

The report showed that a single immigrant worker earning the minimum wage can expect up to £70 a week in benefits.

An immigrant family of four with both adults working can grab up to £360 a week, equal to £18,720 in a year.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, said last night: “The whole EU benefit regime must be renegotiated.

“It is entirely understandable that east Europeans should want to improve their standard of living and make money which they can send home. It is also clear that many of them are valued for their strong work ethic.

“That said, it was a very serious mistake to extend full access to our benefit system to nationals of member states where the standard of living is only about one third of ours.

“This must be changed. We even pay child benefit at British rates to children who have never set foot in this country.”

Anne Main, Tory MP for St Albans, said: “If we expand benefits to people who have not paid into the system it is going to mean more and more tax for those who are paying in.

“I don’t blame people for seeking a better life for themselves and their families, but if this goes on it will have a negative impact on taxpayers.”

Around 750,000 arrivals from Poland, Lithuania and other former eastern bloc countries now in the EU could be followed by even more as these countries struggle with difficult economic conditions, the report said.

Restrictions on benefit claims for the countries that joined the EU in 2004 ended last year, giving hundreds of thousands of immigrants full access to Britain’s welfare state.

“The issue is that the much more generous UK benefit system to which they are now entitled might attract even larger numbers,” said the report.

“A Polish worker on minimum wage in Britain with a spouse and two children earns almost four times what he would get on the minimum wage at home, once the difference in cost of living has been accounted for.”

Analysis showed that the same worker who saved a fifth of his pay packet would be putting aside the equivalent of a week’s earnings back home.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “We have a legal duty to provide support to people who come to this country. However, it is also necessary to protect the taxpayer and the benefit system from possible abuse.

“We need to make sure that the rules do not allow people to take inappropriate advantage of our benefit system.”




http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/312438