British politicians have voiced concerns over ‘benefit tourism’ from EU migrants, but how many people actually fall under this category? Yvonni Markaki and Carlos Vargas-Silva assess the number of recent EU migrants in the UK of working age who are not students, not in employment, and receive some kind of state benefit. They estimate that there are approximately 39,000 people who currently meet this criteria, which amounts to around one per cent of all EU nationals in the UK.
The UK’s membership of the European Union means that EU workers and job seekers who come to the UK have access to its welfare system on essentially equal terms with British citizens. This has led to the idea that some migrants might be taking unfair advantage of the UK welfare system. British politicians have made repeated claims about this possibility, often using the term ‘benefit tourism’ to describe the practice. David Cameron has changed rules in order to end the ‘magnetic pull of Britain’s benefits system’, while Ed Miliband has promised to make sure that migrants ‘earn the right to any benefit entitlements’ and Nick Clegg has insisted that it is right for migrants to ‘jump through hoops’ before claiming benefits.
A recent decision by the European Court of Justice has spurred even more debate about the possibility of ‘benefit tourism’. This decision has been interpreted by some sectors of the British media as allowing for restrictions to be placed on EU migrants’ access to benefits. In practice, there are already multiple administrative hurdles for EU citizens to claim benefits in the UK. EU citizens must demonstrate that they have a ‘right to reside’ in the country under EU law as well as satisfying the ‘habitual residence’ test in order to claim benefits. EU citizens can argue that they have a ‘right to reside’ in the UK if they are working as employees or self-employed, looking for work, self-sufficient or students, among other possibilities. The ‘habitual residence’ test involves aspects related to length of time in the UK, reasons for coming to the UK, family members in the UK and work experience in the country. Therefore, EU citizens only have a qualified right to claim benefits in the UK.
One of the problems with the current discussion on the topic is that there is no agreed definition of a ‘benefit tourist’. Often the use of the term by the media and politicians is vague and confusing, dealing with different groups at different times to support varying arguments. One popular interpretation of the term ‘benefit tourist’ is a person who travels to the UK with the primary objective of acquiring benefits. Unfortunately, there is no useful data on motivations of this sort.
One possible way of informing the debate is to move away from vague concepts such as ‘benefit tourism’ and estimate the number of people who may fit some of the narratives from the British media. Below we provide an example of the types of numbers that could be estimated to inform the debate. The purpose is not to provide an estimate of the number of ‘benefit tourists’ in the UK, but just to illustrate the potential benefit of using numbers to inform a confusing debate.
An illustration
The Labour Force Survey (Second Quarter 2014) suggests that there are an estimated 5,244,000 non-British nationals in the UK. The media narrative around ‘benefit tourism’ implies that these people have relatively quick access to the UK benefit system. For the most part, non-EU citizens do not have recourse to public funds until they have been resident in the UK for five years. Therefore, they are unlikely to have travelled with the primary objective of acquiring benefits. This reduces the group to EU citizens. There are about 2,850,000 EU citizens in the UK.
The person must typically start collecting benefits before contributing to the UK economy (i.e. “something for nothing”). This refers in general to individuals who have spent a short period of time in the UK. One possibility is to restrict the group to EU citizens who have lived in the UK for less than five years. There are 794,000 of those individuals in the UK. Children and those of retirement age would mostly be excluded from stories of ‘benefit tourists’. This reduces the group to EU citizens who have lived in the UK for less than five years and are of working age. There are 627,000 individuals in that group.
Those who are currently working are unlikely to be categorised as ‘benefit tourists’ in the media even if they can access some in-work benefits. This limits the group to EU citizens who have lived in the UK for less than five years, are of working age and are not in employment. This reduces the group to 156,000 individuals. Students are also excluded from much of the discussion about ‘benefit tourism’. Dropping students reduces the group to 106,000 people. Finally, only 39,000 of those 106,000 reported that they receive any state benefits (including child benefit).
Hence, if we look at recent EU migrants of working age who are not students, not in employment and receive some kind of state benefit we get an estimate of 39,000 people. This is less than one per cent of all foreign nationals in the UK and one per cent of all EU nationals in the UK. Again, it is impossible to know how many of these 39,000 came to the UK to claim welfare benefits. Also, keep in mind that the Labour Force Survey may undercount the number of benefit claimants.
From vague concepts to actual evidence
Figures, such as the one estimated above, can be perceived as small (e.g. ‘a negligible share of EU nationals’) or large (e.g. ‘tens of thousands’) depending on the views of different people. It is also possible to argue that people with certain characteristics should be excluded from this group, such as individuals with a disability or those who have already worked in the UK.
The key point is that to have a discussion about the European Union and access to welfare benefits, it is important to move away from ambiguous concepts such as ‘benefit tourism’ and focus on actual numbers. Only then would it be possible to evaluate objectively if (and which) policy changes are necessary to address the potential misuse of the UK welfare system by other EU citizens.
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Note: This article is provided by our sister site, British Politics and Policy at LSE, and gives the views of the authors, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Banksy (public domain)
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Yvonni Markaki – University of Oxford
Yvonni Markaki is Research Officer at the Migration Observatory, University of Oxford.
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Carlos Vargas-Silva – University of Oxford
Carlos Vargas-Silva is Senior Researcher at the Migration Observatory, University of Oxford.
If this was right (seems like an overestimate if anything) and every one of these people claimed jobseekers allowance, it would work out at about 0.007% of the total welfare bill in the country. Major problem? Not even close.
Yet we’re expected to believe that the immigration debate is a practical one and has nothing at all to do with easy populist blame politics.
JSA allowance is just one welfare benefit, range of welfare benefits available to EU and non EU economic migrants includes, housing benefit, child support, healthcare, subsidised travel and so on. Once you start to cost these into the equation the figure of 0.007% seems like an underestimate.
Unmanaged economic migration also places major strain on housing, primary care, transport, acute care etc.
The immigration debate is a practical one and needs to be had
I don’t know the numbers on how much it costs, but it’s pretty clear there are two debates going on in the UK. One is a fundamentally practical debate – the debate about numbers, how to manage migration, the pros and cons of particular strategies and so on. Nobody would dispute that there’s a need to have that kind of debate.
On the other hand, there’s the populist debate. This is a debate that has no interest in numbers because it’s led for the sole purpose of mobilising people by scapegoating immigration for the bulk of society’s problems. That’s the debate being led by Farage – for all intents and purposes it wouldn’t matter in this debate if we could prove immigration is beneficial to our society because it’s not a practical debate in the first place, it’s an emotional/psychological one.
Some immigration may be of net benefit to the Country (and where it is, long may it continue) but I doubt that a blanket statement such as “immigration is beneficial to our society” (implying that all immigration into the Country is of net benefit) is true.
Is Farage misleading the voters when it comes to the issue of immigration? I don`t know, but even if he is he would be no different from other political leaders who have consistently lied about it too and met any concern from voters with accusations of racism, xenophobia etc.
Are all the people supporting / voting for UKIP being duped into scapegoating immigration for the bulk of society`s problems? sounds good, but unlikely to be true
The point isn’t that we can make a blanket statement about whether immigration is beneficial or not (though, as it happens, setting a policy goal to reduce immigration for its own sake – UKIP’s policy – is doing precisely that). The point is that there are two entirely different debates happening around this issue and conflating them is simply a recipe for confusion. On the one hand there’s a practical debate driven by evidence, on the other there’s an emotional debate.
The line you’ve paid lipservice to here about “anyone who criticises immigration being accused of racism” is classic straw man politics and has always been the classic get out of jail free card for those in the “emotional” camp who lack the evidence to defend their opinion properly. It turns the discussion into some abstract debate about free speech where the individual ends up arguing about their right to say something rather than whether they were actually right to say it in the first place.
Patrick – You are assuming that I agree with your proposition that there is two entirely different debates happening around this issue (immigration), I see no evidence of this, therefore I do not agree with you.
Classic straw man politics is what you have done in misrepresenting parts of my last comment, where you write “The line you’ve paid lipservice to here about “anyone who criticises immigration being accused of racism”, which I did not write.
On the contrary, I’m assuming that you disagree with the point, which is why I’ve written it twice. What we’re talking about here is the rather odd idea that we have to treat everyone who is anti-immigration as voicing a dispassionate practical argument, while pretending that the issue is never used by people like Farage to play populist politics with. That’s completely absurd – if you don’t see any evidence of an emotional debate around immigration then I really have no idea where you’re looking.
Writing something twice does not make it true and nor does it convince me that you`re right. Why don`t you give some examples?
Though I am getting the feeling that you are pretty emotional about this issue
Anti-immigration? where did that come from?