European Union migrants cost UK £400m a year, claims think-tank

Migration Watch UK has drawn up the figures in response to a European Commission (EC) report that found so-called benefits tourism was “neither widespread nor systematic”. The report revealed that around 41,000 EU foreign national jobseekers have never worked in the country.

Based on claiming both Jobseeker’s Allowance and housing benefit, Migration Watch has calculated this to come to £400m a year, excluding child benefit, child tax credit, as well as education and health service costs.

Sir Andrew Green, Migration Watch UK chairman, said: “Unlike our European partners, the UK benefits system is wide open to those who have never contributed. A determined renegotiation is now essential to ensure those who have made no contribution should have no access to benefits.”

The EC report found a sharp 42 per cent rise in numbers of economically non-active EU migrants in the UK, from 432,000 in 2006 to 612,000 last year.

There was a 73 per cent increase in EU migrants coming to the UK to seek work between 2009-11, it said. But it found that migrants from the eastern European states which joined the EU in 2004 had made a “positive” contribution to the UK’s finances, paying 37 per cent more in taxes than they receive in services and benefits.

NHS spending of 1.8bn euro (£1.5bn) on care for non-active EU migrants amounted to 1.1 per cent of the total health service budget or 0.1 per cent of UK national income, the report said. Meanwhile, some 2.6 per cent of those claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) were EU migrants.

European employment commissioner Laszlo Andor, who commissioned the report, said: “The study makes clear that 
the majority of mobile EU 
citizens move to another member state to work and puts into perspective the dimension of the so-called benefit tourism, which is neither widespread nor systematic.”