A fair benefits system is something many Crawley constituents talk to me about. This Government has put a cap on the amount of benefits – previously unrestricted – which can be received to no more than the average earnings level of those in work.
In the 13 years of the previous Labour Government, our county had over 200,000 workless households, and an annual £90 billion bill – to you and I as taxpayers – for working age benefits.
It was somewhat startling to read, therefore, the Shadow Chancellor say last week that the benefit cap could be changed, so as to double handouts to a massive £54,000! Another example of Labour looking to scrap what this Government has done to help people into work.
Such Labour policies would hike up the cost of living, which would then see taxpayer having to fund these extra benefits. Under Labour, nobody wins. Except the taxman.
Only a few weeks back, the Labour administration on Crawley Borough Council voted against a Conservative opposition motion publically opposing a £200 annual fee on landlords – and subsequently tenants – in Crawley. If this is what they would inflict on Crawley, imagine what they would do to the country.
The European Commission has been critical of the UK Government, as our country looks to tighten residency restrictions on those EU nationals who qualify as claimants for UK benefits; citing the UK’s consistent refusal to provide evidence relating to its concerns over ‘benefit tourism’.
Brussels’ concerns are misguided, however, as this information is, in some cases, not even recorded. Historically the facilities were not always in place for this information to be logged.
My own research involving all UK health trusts, which started the debate in Parliament on ‘health tourism’, focusing on the NHS rather than the welfare budget, gave some alarming conclusions. I found that most NHS trusts at best only occasionally audit the treatment of foreign nationals who are not entitled to automatic free healthcare, and GP practices do not record this information at all. One of Ed Miliband’s frontbench MPs said our plans to tackle health tourism were ‘xenophobic’.
People in Crawley are quite rightly asking me how this can be fair. It isn’t.
It cannot be for Brussels to decide how we protect our welfare system, which is why I continue to back a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.