Imagine if almost a billion pounds in Universal Credit was being claimed each month by households containing foreign nationals.
What if more than three-quarters of a million foreign-born tenants were occupying social housing in this country, with almost half of London’s social housing taken up by this group?
You don’t need to imagine any of this. It’s happening now.
Britain’s welfare system was designed to support citizens in need. Instead, it has increasingly become a way for large numbers of immigrants to live among us at our expense.
For years, we were told migration was the price we had to pay for growth. Immigration can indeed be a benefit, but the low-skilled, non Western immigrants that actually arrived have overwhelmingly been a burden.
No serious country should put up with this. That’s why I have now published a detailed plan to take foreign nationals off the benefit system and remove them from the country. That plan is laid out in full below, but here is an executive summary.
The first step is to establish a Public Benefit Test or PBT. Modelled on what Denmark does, the PBT would allow us to evaluate each migrant’s net fiscal contributions over the previous five years (tax contributions minus welfare receipts and social housing costs). In order to pass the PBT, a working age adult will have to show that they have made a net contribution over time.
“But non-citizens” some will say “are already barred from claiming benefits or living in social housing. A PBT would be pointless!”
If only that were so. In practice it happens, and one of the reasons it happens is that as soon as a non-UK national gets so-called Indefinite Leave to Remain, they are just as entitled to benefits as a UK citizen.
Imagine if almost a billion pounds in Universal Credit was being claimed each month by households containing foreign nationals.
What if more than three-quarters of a million foreign-born tenants were occupying social housing in this country, with almost half of London’s social housing taken up by this group?
You don’t need to imagine any of this. It’s happening now.
Britain’s welfare system was designed to support citizens in need. Instead, it has increasingly become a way for large numbers of immigrants to live among us at our expense.
For years, we were told migration was the price we had to pay for growth. Immigration can indeed be a benefit, but the low-skilled, non Western immigrants that actually arrived have overwhelmingly been a burden.
No serious country should put up with this. That’s why I have now published a detailed plan to take foreign nationals off the benefit system and remove them from the country. That plan is laid out in full below, but here is an executive summary.
The first step is to establish a Public Benefit Test or PBT. Modelled on what Denmark does, the PBT would allow us to evaluate each migrant’s net fiscal contributions over the previous five years (tax contributions minus welfare receipts and social housing costs). In order to pass the PBT, a working age adult will have to show that they have made a net contribution over time.
“But non-citizens” some will say “are already barred from claiming benefits or living in social housing. A PBT would be pointless!”
If only that were so. In practice it happens, and one of the reasons it happens is that as soon as a non-UK national gets so-called Indefinite Leave to Remain, they are just as entitled to benefits as a UK citizen.