IDS: EU migrants should wait 5 years for benefits

EU migrants should be banned from claim- ing benefits in Britain until they have lived here for five years, Iain Duncan Smith will say today.

The former Tory leader says welfare payments for EU migrants cost the UK nearly £5billion last year and he is calling for a tough new regime post-Brexit.

He argues such curbs would reduce the number of unskilled workers arriving from Eastern Europe and help the Tories hit their tens of thousands migration target.

The report, backed by the European Research Group of Tory MPs which is calling on Mrs May to abandon Chequers, states: ‘People allowed into the UK for work should have no access to incomerelated, family or housing benefits for a set period. This paper proposes five years, although an alternative could be to require a four-year record of NI contributions.’

It also calls for a work permit system to replace free movement after we leave the EU. There would also be a cap on numbers in different sectors of the economy but fewer curbs on highly skilled migrants.