We should have acted more quickly to limit foreigners' access to benefits, admits Cameron
MINISTERS should have acted more quickly to limit foreigners’ access to British benefits as part of efforts to slash immigration numbers, David Cameron admitted yesterday.
The Prime Minister stressed he had now spelled out plans to crack down on migrants’ access to benefits which he would implement if re-elected in May’s general election.
Before the 2010 election Mr Cameron said he wanted to cut net migration - the numbers of people arriving in the UK minus those leaving - to under 100,000 by this year.
But hopes of achieving the goal have been shattered, with latest official figures revealing that some 260,000 more people arrived than left in the year to June last year.
In November Mr Cameron responded by spelling out changes he would seek if he remains Prime Minister, including banning new immigrants from getting state benefits including tax credits and social housing for four years.
Appearing yesterday before the Commons’ Liaison Committee of senior MPs, he admitted that reducing migration to a certain level was not wholly within a government’s control, although his administration had taken steps to achieve it such as capping non-EU immigration.
On migration, I think the biggest lesson I would learn is that we need to act more rapidly on the financial draw to Britain
Pressed on where his government and Whitehall had learned from failures, Mr Cameron told the committee: “On migration .. I think the biggest lesson I would learn is that we need to act more rapidly on the financial draw to Britain.
“I think the way that tax credit system and the and benefits system work is a massive draw ... a financial draw.
“We needed to act on that faster.”
He had accordingly made clear pledges of future action if he remains Prime Minister after May.
Last month Mr Cameron said he would continue aiming to cut net migration to the tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands.
He said that level would make Britain a “better, stronger country” but admitted being blown off course by higher immigration from other EU countries, which the UK cannot currently stop and which he said was partly because of Britain’s strong job creation record.
