A Home Office minister has refused to say whether the British government has ever made use of EU-wide immigration rules that allow people to be expelled from a country if they are not working or actively seeking employment.



Lady Susan Williams admitted that the UK’s interpretation of the European directive governing the free movement of workers was “more than generous” in comparison with other European countries.

She suggested that her department did not hold data that would allow it to know whether European immigrants in the UK had secured jobs or not.

The admissions came in the answers to two separate parliamentary questions on the issue from Labour peers, who are frustrated that the government blames the EU for its failure to hit the tens of thousands migration target.

Lord Richard Rosser asked the minister what Britain’s net migration figure would be if the government had chosen a stricter approach on immigration – in line with EU countries such as Belgium.



Williams said there was no data to prove whether EU nationals were seeking work or not – which would be needed to take action. “Therefore the government has not tried to predict the impact on migration figures in line with the hypothetical scenario described,” she said.

Rosser hit back, claiming the lack of information from the government “smacks of incompetence, at worst a cover up”. “Pulling numbers of out thin air is no way to manage fair and controlled immigration,” he said, describing the government as “frankly two-faced”.

He added: “The government has spent years telling voters they want to reduce immigration to ‘tens of thousands’, then blaming the EU for their failure to deliver on that promise. After saying they had applied EU rules more generously than they needed to, we now hear they’ve also failed to keep track of how many EU migrants to the UK are not fulfilling their employment obligations.”

A second question on the issue came from Peter Hain, who is a passionate supporter of Britain remaining in the EU and believes the government could take more action on immigration under the EU rules.

He asked Williams how many EU nationals had been removed under the rules – which say that people who are not seeking work or who are homeless can be sent home. “I am sorry but the data requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost,” she replied.

Baroness Williams said the government had not tried to predict the impact on migration figures of a stricter approach on immigration from the EU.

Lord Hain told the Guardian: “Either the Tories are clueless on the ability under EU rules to return those not in work or they are covering up their abject failure to do so.

“It is outrageous as they canter on like first world war generals driving our people out of the single market and the customs union with enormous job losses and economic damage which could be avoided by staying in both while honouring the referendum result.”

Hain believes the government could have done more on immigration under the rules. They give people three months to find work when living in another European country. They cannot be asked to leave if they have a genuine chance of finding work. Other countries also have different welfare systems that some claim reduce migration numbers because workers have less access to benefits.

Vicky Ford, the Conservative MEP turned MP who used to chair the European parliament’s single market committee, told the Guardian that there was frustration among leading politicians in Europe about Britain’s more generous rules. “I’ve spoken to leading EU negotiators about Britain’s position. They have said to me that Britain cannot have access to the single market for goods and services if they don’t also respect agreements on [free] movement,” she said.

“But when I have spoken to leading politicians from individual countries, including leading Germans, they have always said that part of the problem is the way that we manage our own system – because we don’t have a contributory benefit system, we make it much more difficult for ourselves to specify that the freedom of movement is for labour and skills.”