Blair used to be steered to lengthen rights for brand new EU employees, recordsdata disclose

Senior ministers steered the then-Top Minister Tony Blair to lengthen granting employment rights to jap and central Eu employees when the EU expanded in 2004, newly launched recordsdata have published.

In February that yr, International Secretary Jack Straw identified that Britain used to be on my own among the larger EU participants in providing a “concession”.

The concession intended folks from Poland and different newly joined EU international locations would be capable to paintings in Britain after 1 Would possibly.

Nearly all of the different massive states would no longer permit this for 2 years: best Italy used to be unsure. Smaller EU international locations, with the exception of Eire, had paintings allow schemes which might prohibit numbers.

Papers from the Nationwide Archives – that have been launched now they’re twenty years outdated – display Straw proposed a six-month lengthen for the United Kingdom.

He stated: “I imagine we may well be confronted with an overly tough state of affairs in early Would possibly”.

He warned the United Kingdom may just “be pressured to revoke the concession the least bit propitious of cases”.

His letter used to be copied to different senior ministers, and the then-deputy top minister John Prescott supported Straw.

Prescott wrote that he used to be “extraordinarily involved” in regards to the doable have an effect on on social housing.

He used to be additionally apprehensive that many employees would come to London and the South East, and not able to seek out respectable housing would “hotel to sharing overcrowded housing in deficient prerequisites”.

However David Blunkett, the then-home secretary, argued the financial system wanted the “flexibility and productiveness” those new employees may supply.

8 jap and central Eu international locations joined the EU in 2004, together with Poland. In keeping with the federal government, the selection of Polish nationals dwelling in the United Kingdom larger from round 69,000 to round 853,000 over the following decade.

Blair requested whether or not the United Kingdom may have paintings lets in, however as a substitute the House Place of business speedily drew up a “employees registration scheme”.

That scheme required A8 employees – the ones from the 8 new member states – to pay a price and sign in their employment in a selected process. Failing to take action would incur an important nice.

From Would possibly 2004 onwards, No 10 monitored those registration numbers week by means of week.

The federal government used to be in particular apprehensive as it had publicly estimated that best 13,000 new employees a yr would come to Britain after the EU expanded.

The recordsdata display that Kate Gross, one of the crucial personal secretaries at No 10, wrote to the top minister on 2 July 2004.

She enclosed a briefing be aware for the clicking which might say “the inflow of recent arrivals predicted by means of the media merely hasn’t arrived”, even if that 13,000 were exceeded.

She defined that whilst 24,000 folks had registered with the scheme, maximum were dwelling in the United Kingdom ahead of 1 Would possibly.

Kate Gross’s memo notes that the majority had been younger, elderly 18-34 – and there used to be no proof of them “exploiting the advantages machine”. Blair scrawled “that’s the key” by means of the facet of that observation.

Then again Kate Gross famous “the important thing elephant entice is how those figures relate to earlier HO [Home Office] projections”.

If programs persevered to extend, she wrote, the selection of new arrivals would hit “50-60,000 by means of Would possibly 2005”.

The following set of figures for the scheme confirmed a drop, and a briefing paper to No 10 stated: “It seems like we’re over the height in programs.”

The Immigration and Nationality Directorate “must be congratulated on imposing the employees registration scheme briefly order”, it stated.

The issue used to be, the scheme wasn’t offering a correct report.

The self-employed didn’t need to sign in, for instance, which excluded many development employees like carpenters.

And there used to be little enforcement.

The shortcomings of the employees registration scheme had been uncovered in past due 2005, when in keeping with the WRS there have been best 95 Polish plumbers in the entire of the UK.

In 24 hours the Day-to-day Mail discovered 95 Polish plumbers in London on my own.

Over the following couple of years masses of 1000’s of A8 nationals, most commonly Polish, moved to the United Kingdom.

Despite the fact that many have now returned, the 2021 census reported 743,000 Polish-born folks resident in Britain.