Minister Green vows to crack down on migrants' benefit culture
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by political editor Paul Francis
Ministers have vowed to ‘sort
out’ the benefits system after figures showed 370,000 migrants in
the UK were claiming jobless benefits.
Ashford MP and immigration
minister Damian Green said Labour had left the government an
organisational mess it was determined to tackle.
The figures have led some to
claim that they bear out concerns over benefit tourism.
An analysis by the government
showed there were 371,000 foreign-born claimants for benefits out
of 5.5m recipients in total. Of these, 285,000 were from outside
the European Economic Area.
More than half were now British
citizens and most others had grounds to be receiving unemployment,
housing and incapacity benefits under current rules.
Mr Green said: "There’s a
natural instinct that says that no one from other countries should
receive benefits at all. But if someone works and pays taxes here,
it’s not unreasonable that we should help out if they fall on hard
times.
"But we have to have a system
that is fair and transparent, and which stops people receiving
money that they should not be entitled to."
A further more detailed analysis
of 9,000 claimants found that most of those were entitled to what
they were getting, but the records of a quarter of them could not
be verified.
In an article for the Daily
Telegraph, Mr Green said: "There may be a good reason for the fact
that we can’t identify the rest – there may be data errors in our
different databases, like the spelling of a foreign
surname.
"But equally, they may be an
indication of a major failure in our benefits system left behind
for us by the last government."
He added: "Either way, we will
find out. We’ll be investigating the records of all of those people
claiming benefits to make sure they are entitled to what they are
receiving.
"We’ve already identified some
with serious question marks over both their right to benefits and
their immigration status."
Friday, January 20 2012
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