New immigrants should not get benefits says UK Culture Minister
February 04 2010 by Liam Clifford
The date for a general election is still to be set, and yet in the past couple of days we have had senior members of both political parties sending out statements of how they feel UK immigration should be handled.
Last night it was the turn of culture minister Margaret Hodge to slam the governments UK immigration practice and called for migrants to be banned from receiving benefits such as job-seekers allowance or income support. In what must have been a shock for Gordon Brown, Hodge went on to remonstrate that it was about time the Government ‘stand up for people who have lived here all their lives’.
The right to state hand-outs according to the culture secretary should be dependent on how long the immigrant has been living here and how many national insurance contributions they have made
Ms. Hodge has more than an outside interest in the subject as she will be defending her seat in Barking and Dagenham, East London, in the forthcoming election against the BNP leader Nick Griffin, a seat that will be likely contested by the BNP candidate on the subject of immigration.
The comments by Ms. Hodge are thought by some to be a pre-emptive attack on the BNP’s planned manifesto. UK immigration protagonists have welcomed her remarks with Migration Watch UK chairman, Sir Andrew Green supporting her stance; "For years there has been a real sense of unfairness."
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