Shock! Report! Most immigrants to the UK are not benefit bludgers!
I was listening to a Radio 4 podcast during the week. “‘Most’ migrant benefit claims legitimate” originally broadcast on 20th January 2012.
It’s all about a UK Govt. report into how many legal migrants to the UK are claiming some form of state benefit. Now, the surprising thing is that no one (apparently) has put together the list of migrants with the list of benefit recipients and found out who is on both lists.
Until now.
So the headline figure -
- there are 370,000 migrants to the UK claiming some form of benefit.
Wow!, sounds like a lot. Only when you look into who those 370,000 people are, starting with a sample number, you find:
- 75% of the sampled number are either now UK citizens, so perfectly entitled to benefits, or they have long term leave to remain. The UK equivalent of permanent residency. So again perfectly entitled to claim benefits.
- 2% of the sampled number are on benefits and do not appear to be entitled to them as they are still foreign nationals.
The rest are currently ‘data mis-matches’ where the UK Govt. don’t know where these people are, but they’re still being paid some benefits. Or that there are discrepancies in the matching – like spelling errors in surnames, address updates not properly completed on both lists and so on.
Hmm, so the papers are screaming about 370,000 foreign bludgers, when really it should say ’7,400 foreign bludgers’. Hmm, doesn’t sound quite as shocking. Although of course these people shouldn’t be paid benefits if they are not entitled to them. The UK Govt. is working through some legal issues to ensure that what is referred to as ‘benefit tourism’ isn’t enabled by the courts and there are proper statistics showing that those receiving state benefits are entitled.
Wow – what a shock. An open and effective benefits system.
Related posts:
- Well I never: An interesting Immigration report
- What a “True Kiwi” thinks of Immigrants.
- An interesting Immigration report – part 2
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