UKIP second in Eastleigh...anyone from Eastleigh care to comment?

xenia-

Immigrants are not arriving here en masse claiming, or even hoping to claim, £26K in benefits.

You cannot decide policy based on a tiny minority of cases or by Daily Mail headlines.

Since you copied and pasted a quote from the article, so shall I:

"The relative 'generosity' of the UK's benefits system in comparison to other European countries can be measured in a number of different ways, and the outcome will vary depending upon which metric and dataset is chosen.

With this in mind the UK can rank anywhere from top to below average in a European league table of benefits expenditure. If Fraser Nelson was referring specifically to government spending on welfare, he may well have a point, although there is also plenty to challenge his assertion."

You should also show some evidence that large numbers of migrants come to the UK to claim benefits. I don't know of any evidence to support that claim. I have seen a few articles which claim that immigrants are a net contributor to the economy, OTOH.

niceguy that isn't the point. Whatever scheme you think is fair, the point is that we have to apply the same requirements to all EU citizens, including those from the UK.

So a UK citizen moving to an new area to take up a job, where they had no record of residence, education or family links, would also fail to meet the criteria.

Historically the UK was the only country that allowed free movement of its citizens within its own borders
which was why people could flock to the cities and launch the Industrial revolution.

By restricting free movement of people within the UK we would be taking a 500 year retrograde step of the type that has hamstrung Euro are economies and is currently adversely affecting the Chinese economy.

Surely the issue is to make better use of the indigenous population and then employers would not seek to hire immigrants.

PS Immigrants have a different type of NHS number - I know because I have one.
And our NI numbers do not tally with our birth years - so we can be easily spotted by officials.

xenia I am shocked if that is true. I am shocked that we pay that kind of money out!

I think that link supports that the UK is generous - "While the UK was found to have larger than average "social assistance schemes, including housing and family benefits, as well as unemployment assistance" several other nations offered better benefits in other areas." Housing and family benefits are some of the most important things as housing costs are the biggest expenses for most people. We are about to get a benefits cap next month of £26,000 a year maximum benefit which means some people get a lot more. £26,000 is still £34,000 of before tax and NI are taken off. It is very generous that you do nothing at all, no work etc and still can be handed on a plate in effect £34,000 of income before tax for doing nothing and that is the cap it is coming down to for many and is regarded as a sacrifice!

In the interests of fairness and open debate, you can look at the fullfact website here:

fullfact.org/factchecks/is_the_uks_welfare_system_the_most_generous_in_europe-27368

Which looks at the various measures of 'welfare generosity' and 'welfare expenditure' of the UK compared with europe and the OECD.

In summary, it depends what you are measuring.

Yes, vesela but many countries are not as generous as us. I think Bulgarians might get £10 a month for a child say and in Spain everyone gets their unemployment benefit for only 2 years.

How about some facts and figures to show how relatively generous the UK is compared with the rest of europe? Comparisons with Bulgaria are misleading because it is a much poorer country than the UK. If you don't compare like with like, then you could use Afghanistan or any other number of the world's poorest countries.

Spain everyone gets their unemployment benefit for only 2 years

And do you have any idea what percentage of benefit claimants (JSA, presumably) claim for more than 2 years? Because:

That generous benefit system, just how generous is it? Well, as it happens, the OECD?s database has fairly recent data (2007) on replacement rates across the industrialised world (for people who were paid between two-thirds and 100% of average earnings when they lost their jobs):

touchstoneblog.org.uk/2011/09/sometimes-i-wonder-why-i-bother/

The notion that Eastern Europeans are travelling across Germany and France, ignoring Scandinavia and the low countries to get at our benefits system is, frankly, bonkers. People who know anything about UK social security have known for decades that one of its characteristic features is its relative lack of generosity.

A test for housing would involve everyone having to show they either worked in the area (which most immigrants will be able to show, as work is generally why they're here), been educated there or have family links. So there will be no real opportunity to restrict access to housing.

I disagree. I think this is a common sense solution. Let's say (for argument's sake) that you introduce a new rule that priority for housing is given to those who can demonstrate they have worked or been educated in the local area for five years.

Would you seriously still say we should treat an EU 'immigrant' differently if they've been in the local area for five years and paying UK taxes for that time?

Here's an article from Speigel about how Germany are trying to modify those rules

Yes, vesela but many countries are not as generous as us. I think Bulgarians might get £10 a month for a child say and in Spain everyone gets their unemployment benefit for only 2 years.

if we have one of the most generous systems then people flock here.

The fault is caused by not harmonising benefits throughout the EU but allowing free movement. You either need identical taxes and benefits and free movement or neither.

Yes, it's all politics.

Take a look at this. Then note that the hapless Clegg is chairing the cabinet committee which is examining the "options".

Olgaga - agree that it's just kite-flying.

As the FT says today in an article looking at the (very limited) options, "One other thing worth noting is that benefit tourism is really not a big problem, whatever people?s perceptions of it might be."

What the German government was trying to do has recently been ruled illegal by a German court, anyway.

This idea that "the UK is the only one that takes the rules literally - all the other countries find a way round it" is a myth.

I don't see how access to the NHS could be based on NI contributions. Many people - those who have just left education for example, have no record of NI contributions. Unless your test covers all EU citizens, not just those from elsewhere in the EU, it will be discriminatory.

Access to health care within Europe is already covered by the EHIC.

It will also be difficult to bring in habitual residence tests for welfare because (a) the EU have already ruled than anything but an EU-wide residence test is discriminatory (in 2011) and (b) the bureaucracy would probably be so costly it would be counter-productive.

A test for housing would involve everyone having to show they either worked in the area (which most immigrants will be able to show, as work is generally why they're here), been educated there or have family links. So there will be no real opportunity to restrict access to housing.

I think this is just Tory kite-flying, in response to their embarrassment over the Eastleigh result.

sorry, forget that - I see now that you're talking about having to have made X years of NI contributions before you can access benefits.

and what about people straight out of university?

Xenia - it's very, very, very hard to get a job if you're a Roma person in the Czech Republic. There is very blatant discrimination on the job market, and from what I've heard it's no different in Romania and Bulgaria. And yet in the UK they manage to get jobs straight away. In other words, having X years of insurance contribution at home isn't a guide to how employable/hardworking you are.

The proposal for immigrants from within the EU to have to show X years of NI contributions which is Germany's solution and one the UK is seriously looking at is wise as it would comply with EU law and would be applied to people in the UK and outside. As I am in favour of people working hard I also think it would help those who don't work in the UK and choose not to (and yes they do exist). That requirement would then help if a lot of Bulgarians and Romanians come over and did not work and had no history of paying national insurance contributions in their own land.

As for none EU immigrants there are fairly tough entry requirements now.

NHS tourism is not as well controlled as it might be and the recovery rates for UK student loan people who disappear abroad and don't pay and those who are due to repay to the NHS for their NHS care when they leave is not very high. It can be quite hard to recover money abroad.

WTAF?! Do you realise how very, very, very racist your post is? What horrible words.

Still, at least you are honest ...

If someone sells big Issue they become self employed and get an NI number thus opening up an avenue to benefits etc. I think there was a thread on here a while back about a women who took the council to court about it etc.

Yes Feel the Force it is definitely not a level playing field. It doesn't seem reciprocal and we have more to offer.

I didn't agree with the ruling that selling the Big Issue constitutes self-employment for the purposes of claiming benefits, but from next year whether it does or not isn't going to matter, since she'll have the right to be in the UK regardless. And I don't see why she shouldn't be, when she's an EU citizen - it's not the UK looking after other countries' citizens, it's the UK looking after other EU citizens.

Lots of gypsies come from the Czech Republic to the UK in order to be able to work (they are massively discriminated against here on the job market - they had jobs under communism but it's now very hard to get one as a Roma) and so that their children can go to an ordinary school instead of being sent straight to special school, as usually happens here (then they go to the UK and the children who had to go to the "special schools" turn out to do well). Very far from ideal, obviously, and attitudes towards Roma here aren't changing much despite years of money from EU social funds. Pressure is being put on the Czech government to stop the special schools thing, but the sanctions are never enough.

vesela you are quite right and it's a great idea. The problem is that the partners are unequal. Some countries offer more work, higher wages and lots of benefits and others have nothing much to offer (which is why their citizens often bowl up here).

I'll give another example. In our little market town we have a permanent fixture of a Romanian gypsy who sells the Big Issue. She has done for the last three years. I have got to know her and she is a nice lady. But again by her own admission she is one of a group of Romanians who live in a town 25 miles away and they then fan out every week to sell the Big Issue in various smaller towns. She talks about using food banks and obviously must be on benefit as must the rest of compatriots. And this has been going on for years. No effort to retrain, get a job and her English is still no better. I know she must have come from a bad situation and I know gypsies have it hard in Romania. However, once again the UK is looking after other countries citizens.

feeltheforce - I know what you mean, but it's kind of like the old poor laws where parishes refused to deal with each other's vagrants! There comes a point at which it makes more sense to administer these things at a higher level.

Imagine you were living in another EU country - children all at school there - and you lost your job. You were reasonably confident of being able to get another one before too long, but in the meantime you really really needed unemployment benefit to get by. Would you up sticks and go back to the UK to claim it, or would you stay put and be glad that you were able to do so?

I don't see what is mean about that. I am looking at immigrating to Australia at the moment. Our visa was dependent on us being able to support ourselves and not being any kind of burden on the state at all. But in the UK we seem to allow lots of people to come here that are nothing but a burden on the state. I honestly don't think anyone objects to people who come here and work, pay their taxes, add to society and the economy. Like someone said before we are a nation of immigrants.

The reason UKIP are making gains is because many people feel the EU has taken away our control of borders and immigration. I'm not at all anti EU in fact I am very pro. I love that we can all travel round and work but I wouldn't expect another country to fund me if I couldn't fund myself.