The U.K. is to stop immigrants from receiving payments to cover housing costs unless they have jobs, as political parties seek to show voters they’re tough on welfare.
“No longer can people come here from abroad and expect to get something for nothing,” Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith and Home Secretary Theresa May wrote in an article for the Daily Mail newspaper published today. “For those migrants who do come here, we’re ensuring they are unable to take unfair advantage of our system by accessing benefits as soon as they arrive.”
With an election due in May 2015, the governing Conservatives are trying to portray the Labour opposition as soft on welfare, a charge the party’s spokeswoman Rachel Reeves attempted to rebut with her own announcement today that she would make the unemployed sit literacy and numeracy tests, and send them on courses if they failed.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at
via U.K. Tightens Immigrant Welfare Rules by Removing Housing Pay – Businessweek.
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