MIGRANT WORKER NUMBERS SURGE
Mass EU migration blamed for keeping British wages low
EMPLOYMENT is rising far faster among migrants than Britishborn workers.
New statistics showed an extra 229,000 foreigners found work in Britain in the past year. But employment of UK workers rose just 185,000. The figures confirm an admission by Remain campaign leader Lord Rose that low wages are being held down by mass EU migration, say critics. The
stark evidence from the Office for National Statistics ( ONS) was seen by Brexit campaigners as proof Britain needs to quit the EU and regain control of its borders.
It follows revelations last week that immigration may have been 1.2 million higher in the past five years than previously feared.
According to the ONS, foreigners were the clear beneficiaries of a 414,000- surge in the number of jobs.
The overwhelming majority of these were from other EU countries, who accounted for 224,000 of the 229,000 extra foreign workers.
Numbers from the rest of the world – which the Government can stop coming here – remained fairly steady.
An estimated 2.15 million EU citizens were working in the UK in the first three months of 2016, up 94,000 on the previous quarter and more than double the number in early 2010.
The total of non- British workers – excluding illegal immigrants – is 3.34 million.
That is 10.6 per cent of all workers, up from 928,000, or 3.5 per cent, in 1997.
The ONS stated: “This increase in non- UK nationals working in the UK reflects the admission of several new member states to the EU.”
It also revealed just 23 per cent of the increase in people at work since last year were UK- born, although some of those born abroad will have become British citizens since moving to work here.
Conservative former Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, a key figure in the Vote Leave Brexit campaign, said: “Our labour market is thriving but it’s notable more than three- quarters of the rise in employment over the last year has come from people born abroad.
“The truth is that Brits on low pay – and those out of work – are forced to compete with millions of people from abroad for jobs, and they suffer downward pressure on their wages.
“The only way to take back control of our borders, economy and democracy is to Vote Leave on June 23. That way we can have a fair migration policy to bring in the skills we need while investing in home- grown talent.”
Alp Mehmet, vice chair of Migration Watch UK, said: “The majority of employment growth has gone to non- UK nationals, including 55,000 from Romania and Bulgaria.
“Given most EU nationals take up lower skill, lower paid work there will be little benefit to public finances.”
The ONS report also warned the jobs market could be “cooling off” after unemployment dipped by just 2,000 in the three months to March, to 1.69 million.
Average earnings rose two per cent in the year to March.
Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb said: “These are another recordbreaking set of figures, with more in work than ever.”
DAVID Cameron stood accused last night of ditching key measures from his Government programme in a desperate attempt to keep his EU referendum Remain campaign on track.
The Prime Minister came under fire over failing to include proposals for bolstering the power of Parliament against Brussels or detailed plans for scrapping the Human Rights Act.
He was also accused of diluting other measures in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech to try to take the heat out of the Tory civil war over Europe.
Crackdown
The Queen yesterday announced 21 new Government Bills in her 65th attendance at the State Opening of Parliament.
Among the measures in the address she read to MPs and peers from the throne in the House of Lords were an overhaul of the prison system, a crackdown on extremism, a drive to speed up adoption and a “sugar tax” on soft drinks.
But Eurosceptic Tory MPs were dismayed that an expected “Sovereignty Bill” designed to ensure that laws made at Westminster have legal supremacy over measures from Brussels or other international bodies was not mentioned.
And the long- expected plans to replace Labour’s Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights were only advanced by the announcement of a public consultation on the idea.
Former Tory minister Iain Duncan Smith, who quit the Cabinet in March and is now campaigning for an EU exit, yesterday said the Sovereignty Bill had been “tossed aside”.
“Many Conservatives have become increasingly concerned that in the Government’s helter- skelter pursuit of the referendum, they have been jettisoning or watering down key elements of their legislative programme,” said the former work and pensions secretary.
“Whether it is the Trade Union Bill or the BBC Charter proposals, it seems nothing must stand in the way of winning the referendum.
“The fear in Government must be that, as no one in Britain buys the idea that the EU has been reformed, the Sovereignty Bill would draw the public’s attention back to that failure. After all, if the EU Court of Justice is supreme and can strike down our laws, the British people would have just laughed at the idea Britain can be sovereign unless we leave the EU.”
MEP and Ukip deputy leader Paul Nuttall said: “It was revealing to examine what didn’t make it into the list of Bills announced today, such as the previously much talked about but now dropped Sovereignty Bill.
“It being dropped from the Government’s legislative agenda just goes to show really how much of a con job Cameron’s EU ‘ re- negotiation’ has been.”
Downing Street aides defended the Government’s proposals. A senior Tory source said: “This Queen’s Speech has some of the most radical reforms of the prison system in decades, far- reaching plans to reform the system for children in care and dramatic changes to local government finance. That is a bold, radical
agenda.” And he insisted a Sovereignty Bill could be brought forward by the Government later in the current parliament.
The source said: “There is work under way on this. We will come forward with more proposals in due course.”
The measure had been delayed until after the EU referendum because it would not be needed in the event of a vote to quit the bloc, the source added.
Amid raucous scenes in the Commons, the Prime Minister declared: “This is a Queen’s Speech that combines economic security with extending life chances for all – it’s the Queen’s Speech of a progressive, one- nation Conservative Government.”
Jeremy Corbyn enraged Tories with a 41- minute speech attacking the Government programme.
Flouted
The Labour leader, an ardent antimonarchist, had earlier attended the ceremony in the Lords for the first time in his 33 years as an MP.
Delivering his first Opposition leader’s response to the Queen’s Speech, he flouted Commons custom by refusing to take a single intervention from a backbencher as he angrily accused the Government of slashing public services.
He said: “This austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity, and it’s a wrong choice for our country made by a government with the wrong priorities.”
In reply, the Prime Minister mocked the Labour leader. “I think we just witnessed a Parliamentary record of a 41- minute speech without an intervention,” Mr Cameron said. “Was there really no question from any Labour MP? Anyone in the SNP? Anything to say?”