UK Borders Bill

My noble friend is to be warmly congratulated on raising the important question of destitution among A8 nationals and the need for better outreach to them. We all recognise that in granting free movement to A8 citizens from the start, we gained a huge advantage in filling shortages of workers in a few sectors of our economy, some of which my noble friend has mentioned, and thus achieving higher growth rates than any other existing member state of the European Union. My noble friend said that it is estimated that 630,000 people applied to register on the worker registration scheme between 1 May 2004 and 31 March 2007, but the net figure of those remaining here is obviously far lower because most come for short periods, especially in agriculture and other types of work which are of a seasonal nature. My noble friend quoted from the latest accession monitoring report which proves that 82 per cent of those migrants are aged between 18 and 34, and that 94 per cent had no dependants when they registered. So they are contributing a net amount to our economy, which is of enormous importance. In quarter one of 2007, only 848 A8 applicants for income support and jobseeker’s allowance were allowed to proceed for consideration. The rules permitting such applications are very restrictive, as my noble friend has said. It was inevitable with such a large influx that a small proportion of them would not make it in the job market and would need some form of support other than social security benefits, to which, as the figure shows, very few are entitled. If it is sometimes difficult for our own citizens to access the social security system and services provided by local authorities, how much harder must it be for those people, for whom English is a second language and who are not familiar with British institutions such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, where the kind of advice that my noble friend advocates would be readily available.? One of the agencies which has done most to disseminate awareness of the specialist services available to eastern European migrants is Homeless Link. It has summarised the grants made to local authorities, particularly in London, to meet the challenges that they face. For instance, the Home Office made a one-off grant to the London Borough of Westminster of £250,000 to help A8 nationals return home and to assist others into employment. We are grateful for that. I wonder, however, if the Government are satisfied that the problem has been solved, and, if not, why they could not ask the International Organisation for Migration, which has vast experience of helping people who want to return to their countries of origin, to assist with A8 nationals who find themselves in this situation. That would also mean that migrants who live in other parts of the country would be eligible, instead of only those who live in central London. We are grateful for what has been done for the City of Westminster, which received £200,000 in grants from the DCLG and the Home Office for interpretation services and community service officers. Given those generous awards to one local authority, why are others apparently not getting equivalent help? What grants have been made available in 2007-08 to help local authorities with destitute A8 nationals living in their areas, and to which local authorities have those grants been made? My noble friend highlighted an extremely important problem and I hope that, as we approach the end of this Committee, the Minister will at least accept in principle my noble friend’s constructive proposal for dealing with it.