EU migrants to Britain will not be able to claim child benefit or child tax credit until they have lived in the country for three months, George Osborne will announce on Wednesday. Immigrants already face a three-month wait before they can receive jobseeker's allowance, and access to housing benefit has been banned. EU claimants are eligible for child benefit only if they are earning more than £150 a week.
Entitlement to jobseeker's allowance, child benefit and child tax credit is already restricted for many claimants to a maximum of six months, so the latest announcement in practice means most EU migrants will receive the latter two for between three and six months after arrival. After six months, the Treasury said, only those who have a job offer or compelling evidence they have a genuine chance of finding work will be able to continue claiming – and then only for a short period.
Conservatives are also looking to see how far they can follow recently announced German proposals to take powers to deport any EU migrant who does not have a realistic chance of securing work after six months, regardless of whether they claim benefits. The German move goes to the heart of the principle of free movement of workers within the EU, one of the cornerstones of the union.
The new three-month wait for child benefit and child tax credit, announced by the Treasury on Tuesday night, will come into force in July. The government also announced that from Wednesday EU migrants eligible for jobseeker's allowance will no longer have routine access to interpretation services, and from the end of the month their spoken English will be tested in England. If claimants' language is found to be a barrier to looking for work, they will be expected to improve it.
New claimants will be screened by Jobcentre Plus, and those with poor spoken English will need to take part in local training to improve their language skills and chances of securing and keeping a job. Ministers said claimants will be expected to improve their English within six months; benefit sanctions will apply if claimants refuse to attend or don't show they are making an effort to improve their skills.
The sanctions would include loss of benefit, but there is no proposal at present to deport a migrant found not to be taking reasonable steps to find a job.
