Jobless immigrants will be denied housing benefit under Government plans to tackle immigration and prevent the welfare system from being exploited. Home Secretary Theresa May and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the move would come into force from April. It follows legislation rushed through Parliament to prevent migrants from claiming out-of-work benefits until they have been in Britain for three months. Meanwhile, in her first major speech as shadow work and pensions secretary, Rachel Reeves will later outline Labour plans to strip benefits from unemployed people who lack basic English, maths and IT skills unless they take up training. Speaking on Sky News Mr Duncan Smith said: These are strong measures to make sure that British taxpayers dont subsidise people who want to do a bit of benefit tourism. He said that the Government had introduced rules so that from January 1 this year immigrant would not be able to claim out-of-work benefits until they had been living in the UK for three months. Building on this he said that from April 1 the Government would be removing entitlement to housing benefit altogether for this group. He added that EU migrants would only be able to claim jobseekers allowance for six months but would then have to leave the country. Mr Ducan Smith highlighted figures showing the number of Britons in jobs fell by 413,000 between 2005 and 2010, while the number of working foreigners increased by 736,000.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 22:57:16 +0000