SECRET REPORT WARNS OF MIGRATION MELTDOWN IN BRITAIN BY SIMON WALTERS
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-398232/Secret-report-warns-migration-meltdown-Britain.html
A massive rise in immigration next year could trigger a devastating crisis in Britain’s schools, housing and welfare services, according to a secret Government report leaked to The Mail on Sunday.
The document reveals that every Government department has been ordered to draw up multi-million-pound emergency plans after being told public services face catastrophe as a result of the hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans pouring into Britain.
Special investigation
• Polish children dumped by parents heading for Britain
It also warns that a ‘step change’ in the level of immigration next year could make things even worse, triggering an angry backlash across the country.
The disclosure comes as The Mail on Sunday reveals that the new wave of immigration is causing as much social strife in Eastern Europe as it is in Britain.
Our investigation found Poles are dumping children in local care homes so they can travel to Britain. Some reportedly killed themselves after being left behind.
The leaked document, written by Home Office Minister Joan Ryan, is entitled Migration From Eastern Europe: Impact On Public Services And Community Cohesion.
In stark contrast to the Government’s repeated assurances that immigration is under control, it warns:
• Ministers may be forced to abandon their refusal to grant council houses and welfare benefits to workshy new arrivals, creating what Ms Ryan describes as an extra ‘pull factor’ attracting further immigrants seeking handouts.
• A new army of English language teachers is required to deal with a huge rise in the number of Eastern European children since last September.
• East European immigrants living rough are becoming drunk and aggressive, and flooding homeless hostels.
• The influx of cheap labour is forcing British workers to take pay cuts with ‘serious implications’ for social tension.
• East European patients are ‘blocking’ hospital beds because they are ineligible for social care and benefits if they leave.
• Towns and cities hit hardest by the new immigration are demanding millions of pounds of extra money to cope.
The document, marked ‘restricted’, was written by Ms Ryan on July 19, the day after she submitted a separate report warning that 45,000 ‘undesirable’ migrants from Romania and Bulgaria may settle in the UK when the two nations join the EU next year.
The number of immigrants to Britain since Poland and seven other East European countries joined the EU two years ago is now put at 600,000, compared with the Government’s original prediction of between 5,000 and 13,000 a year. Ministers expect this number to rise by up to another 140,000 next year.
Warning of potential chaos for schools, housing and health, Ms Ryan’s report says: “All departments have been asked to consider contingency plans…in case of a further step change in the number of new migrants.”
One of her biggest fears is that the courts may force the Government to scrap its restrictions on East European immigrants applying for council houses or benefits. At present, they receive some benefits only if they register for work – which one in three don’t do – and earn full benefit rights after they have worked for a year.
Ms Ryan says: “The legal basis for this is precarious and there is a strong risk of a successful challenge. This is a concern.”
Many East European immigrants end up homeless, partly because of the welfare curbs. “This leads to antisocial behaviour, street drinking and aggressive begging’ as well as ‘tensions’ between vagrants, the report warns. One in six places in homeless hostels in London is now taken up by Eastern Europeans, who often arrive with no plans for a job or home.
Ms Ryan says some councils are demanding an end to the ban on housing and other benefits so they can get people off the street. But the report warns that dropping the restrictions could create a new ‘pull factor for people to come to the UK unprepared for work’.
Areas with the most East European arrivals – including Slough and parts of London – are demanding more cash for public services, says the report.
And schools desperately need more help following a sudden rise in the number of East European children, many of whom do not speak English. Some primary schools have accommodated up to 50 extra Polish children in one term.
Ms Ryan calls for action – and cash – to recruit extra English language teachers. “Schools often find it hard…because of large numbers of new arrivals,” her report said.
The document says foreign workers have helped fill jobs other workers refused to do. But it adds: “There is anecdotal evidence, particularly from Southampton, a port of entry for Eastern Europeans, that the effect of migration…has been to depress wages for low-paid workers. If this were widely true, or that perception were to spread widely, the implications for community cohesion would be potentially serious.”
There were few signs of social disorder involving Eastern European workers but they “feature increasingly in tension reports…and were a recurrent grievance in far-right extremists’ material during recent (local) elections”.
Some migrants are living in hospitals and mental health units because “there is no ability to provide access to benefits or housing in which on-going care duties could be met”.
In conclusion Ms Ryan says: “There are areas in which strains are evident.”
Despite the Government’s underestimate of the number of migrants, public services had generally coped, the report concluded. But the expected influx of Romanians and Bulgarians meant that this “optimistic assessment may not continue to hold good in, say, a year’s time”.
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