David Cameron: Why freedom of movement needs tough but fair rules

Right now the pressures are too great. I appreciate that at a time when other European countries are facing huge pressure from migration from outside the EU, this may be hard for some other EU countries to understand.

But in a way these pressures are an example of exactly the point the UK has been making in recent years.

For us, it is not a question of race or background or ethnicity – Britain is one of the most open and cosmopolitan countries on the face of the earth.

People from all over the world can find a community of their own right here in Britain. The issue is one of scale and speed, and the pressures on communities that brings, at a time when public finances are already under severe strain as a consequence of the financial crisis.

This was a matter of enormous concern in our recent General Election campaign and it remains so today. Unlike some other Member States, Britain’s population is already expanding.

Our population is set to reach over 70 million in the next decades and we are forecast to become the most populous country in the EU by 2050. At the same time, our net migration is running at over 300,000 a year. That is not sustainable.

We have taken lots of steps to control immigration from outside the EU, but we need to be able to exert greater control on arrivals from inside the EU too.

The principle of the free movement of labour is a basic treaty right and it is a key part of the single market.

Over a million Britons benefit from their right to live and work anywhere in the EU. We do not want to destroy that principle, which indeed many Britons take for granted, but freedom of movement has never been an unqualified right, and we now need to allow it to operate on a more sustainable basis in the light of the experience of recent years.

Britain has always been an open, trading nation, and we do not want to change that, but we do want to find arrangements to allow a Member State like the UK to restore a sense of fairness to our immigration system and to reduce the current very high level of migration from within the EU into the UK.

That means first of all correcting the mistakes of the past by ensuring that when new countries are admitted 
to the EU in the future – free movement will not apply to those new members until their economies have converged much more closely with existing Member States.

Next, we need to create the toughest possible system for dealing with abuse of free movement. That includes tougher and longer re-entry bans for fraudsters and people who collude in sham marriages.

It means addressing the fact that it is easier for an EU citizen to bring a non-EU spouse to Britain than it is for a British citizen to do the same.

It means stronger powers to deport criminals and stop them coming back, as well as preventing entry in the first place. And it means addressing ECJ judgments that have widened the scope of free movement in a way that has made it more difficult to tackle this kind of abuse.

But ultimately, if we are going to reduce the numbers coming here, we need action that gives greater control of migration from the EU.

As I have said previously, we can do this by reducing the draw that our welfare system can exert across Europe.

To those who say that this won’t make a difference, I say look at the figures. We now know that, at any one time, around 40 per cent of all recent European Economic Area migrants are supported by the UK benefits system with each family claiming on average around £6,000 a year of in work benefits alone and over 10,000 recently-arrived families claiming over £10,000 a year.

We need to restore a sense of fairness, and reduce this pull factor subsidised by the taxpayer.

I promised four actions at the election. Two have already been achieved.

EU migrants will not be able to claim Universal Credit while looking for work and nd if those coming from the EU haven’t found work within six months, they can be required to leave.

But we need to go further to reduce the numbers coming here.

We have proposed that people coming to Britain from the EU must live here and contribute for four years before they qualify for in work benefits or social housing. We should end the practice of sending child benefit overseas.

I understand how difficult some of these welfare issues are for other Member States, and I am open to different ways of dealing with this 
issue, but we do need to secure arrangements that deliver on the objective set out in the Conservative 
Party manifesto to control migration from the European Union.

David Cameron is the Prime Minister. This is an edited version of his speech to the Chatham House think-tank on the EU referendum.