Mass migration 'is damaging Britain': Leaked jobs report reveals civil servants' concern at EU influx
- Document reveals EU citizens are biggest winners in British jobs market
- Graduates from Eastern EU taking low-skilled jobs, topped up by benefits
- It's damaging ‘social policy objectives’ of getting low-skilled Brits into work
Mass migration from Europe is having a ‘disproportionate’ impact on the UK and damaging society, a government analysis says.
The leaked Whitehall document reveals that EU citizens are overwhelmingly the biggest winners in the British jobs market, responsible for 75 per cent of the growth in employment.
Graduates from Eastern Europe are taking low-skilled jobs, topped up by ‘generous in-work benefits, without having contributed, from Day One’.
This is damaging the ‘social policy objectives’ of getting lower-skilled British citizens into work, according to the Department for Work and Pensions analysis.
It says ‘unprecedented’ levels of migration from the EU are the main force behind the equivalent of a ‘new Coventry’ being added to Britain’s population every year.
Mass migration from Europe is having a ‘disproportionate’ impact on the UK and damaging society, a government analysis says
Separately, writing in today’s Mail, ex-work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith warns of a fresh ‘stampede’ of EU workers if Britain does not vote to leave in the June 23 referendum.
The leaked paper, ‘EU & International Affairs in DWP’, is marked ‘sensitive’. It dates from March 24.
The report reads: ‘Net migration continues to rise at record levels and is now 336,000.
‘The biggest contributor is the increase in the long-term migration of EU citizens. This is equivalent to adding a new Coventry to the UK every year.
‘Newly arriving EEA [European Economic Area] nationals have a disproportionate impact on the UK. Numbers in employment in the UK grew by nearly 450,000 in the last year. EEA nationals secured about three quarters of that growth in employment, compared to 25 per cent for UK nationals.’
It adds that well-educated EU citizens from Eastern Europe ‘are over-represented in low-skilled sectors in the UK – in-work benefits can act as a subsidy for them to take and stay in these jobs, damaging UK social policy objectives’.
It says 60 per cent of Eastern European graduates in the country work in lower-skilled occupations, compared with 20 per cent of those from Britain.
It adds that more than £3.1billion of the annual £27.2billion in-work benefits bill goes to EEA nationals. They represent around 6 per cent of the working-age population, but receive more than 10 per cent of the in-work benefit spend.
The leaked Whitehall document reveals that EU citizens are overwhelmingly the biggest winners in the British jobs market, responsible for 75 per cent of the growth in employment
The leaked document says David Cameron’s ‘emergency brake’ on welfare is designed to ‘address’ the issues it outlines.
Last night a DWP source said: ‘These are all facts that are already in the public domain.
‘This is exactly why the PM has secured a deal to make sure EU migrants don’t get full access to benefits for four years.’
Senior sources close to the department have said the mechanism to limit EU claimants’ access to benefits is ‘unworkable’, but DWP insiders insist there is no question of it not being implemented.
A four-year ban on EU workers receiving in-work state hand-outs was jettisoned under pressure from Brussels. Instead, migrants will initially receive nothing but will then have their payments reinstated gradually until they are paid in full after four years.
Most watched News videos
- King and Queen depart University College Hospital
- Vunipola laughs off taser as police try to eject him from club
- Jewish man is threatened by a group of four men in north London
- Terrifying moment Turkish knifeman attacks Israeli soldiers
- Police cordon off area after sword-wielding suspect attacks commuters
- Horror as sword-wielding man goes on rampage in east London
- Two heart-stopping stormchaser near-misses during tornado chaos
- King Charles in good spirits as he visits cancer hospital in London
- Moment van crashes into passerby before sword rampage in Hainault
- Shocked eyewitness describes moment Hainault attacker stabbed victim
- Moment first illegal migrants set to be sent to Rwanda detained
- Moment first illegal migrants set to be sent to Rwanda detained
