noajthan wrote:
All that EU law says about such matters, (paraphrasing here), is that a citizens should not pose an undue burden on the social assistance system of the host state.
However, UK use of UK ET/MET tests to check out hardworking Union citizens on EU migration trajectory is not compliant with EU law.
It they don't meet the MET, then they aren't working hard. The MET is based on eanring enough to pay National Insurance to the UK. To pay NI is something like 21 hours a week at the national hourly minimum wage. And they are certainly aren't working hard enough to pay any income tax to the UK. But as they still expect the UK taxpayers to pay for their healthcare, to use the schools for free for their children, drive on the roads, use services, claim benefits to keep their children and to house them etc, when they give nothing to the UK, isn''t that being an "undue burden" to another EEA country?
We have seen the UK tackle the problem of those EEA citizens who were single parents in the UK and don't work; they had all their benefits removed as they aren't a qualified person. Then they moved to tackle the problem of EU nationals who claim full benefits (jsa, housing and benefits for their children) while they claim they have been a jobseeker for years in the UK; they too have lost all their UK benefits as they aren't a qualifed person. It stand to reason they were going to tackle the problem of those who claim benefits as a "worker" or "self employed" when they do very little to pay for their own families and don't pay into the UK.
When Blair announced that his new benefits called Tax Credits and Pension Credits, were vote winners, he didn't realise the massive rise in claimants would cause the UK's welfare bill to be more the UK takes in income tax! Realising too late their mistake, Labour started on the Welfare reforms and brought in medicals for those that want sick benefits and started on the one income based welfare payment (now called Universal Credit) to reduce/stop the benefits given to those parents who don't want to work much much and who use their children in what is known as "benefit cash cows".
All the welfare changes coming in is nothing that we didn't know is going to happen. Even the UK governmnet announced in their budget, that they were reducing benefits for children to below that of Germany, France and Sweden. The UK is also moving to right the wrong of pensioners who didn't contribute to the UK during their working life, getting more that those who did. When Labour got voted out, these welfare reforms just carried on and were easily voted in by by parliament.
There was a long running thread on the benefits board of a well know site, where they first talked about the new Universal Credit and how parents who didn't work much, would get less benefits/have to work for their welfare payment, which was all part the new Universal Credit conditions.The new MET test then appeared on that thread becasue EEA citizens, who thought they would have a few years yet before the UK reduced their benefits under UNiversal credit, found the UK now had a test to see if they were a EEA worker of self employed person, for benefit purposes.
EEA Students and their familes and Self Sufficients and their families, have also had changes to stop them being too much of a burden to the UK. Why should those EEA citizens who claim they are working (which then gives them access to UK benefits) yet do very little to keep their own children, be exempt from the changes to what a quaified person is?
