Cutting migrant benefits won't halt flow, PM told: Advisers say four year wait would have little influence on reducing numbers coming to the UK

• e-mail

David Cameron’s flagship plan to curb benefits for EU migrants would do little to cut immigration, the Government’s top economic advisers warned yesterday.

A senior member of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said there was nothing to suggest a four-year wait before migrants can claim would significantly reduce numbers.

The Prime Minister has made the curb the focus of his bid to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU, arguing it would have a ‘substantial’ impact on arrivals.

The Prime Minister has made curbing migrants' benefits the focus of his bid to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU, arguing it would have a ‘substantial’ impact on arrivals

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith yesterday insisted the proposal was still alive, despite a warning from EU President Donald Tusk that there is ‘no consensus’ on a deal in Europe.

Mr Duncan Smith said many countries including Germany and France were privately more positive and he urged Mr Cameron to stick to his guns: ‘Quietly behind closed doors I think every one of them thinks it is an issue. It’s an issue in Bavaria as much as it is in Birmingham.’

But, in a withering verdict, economist Sir Stephen Nickell told MPs the bar on benefits was ‘unlikely’ to have a significant effect on immigration levels, even if Mr Cameron’s fellow EU leaders do sign up.

The senior OBR member told the Commons Treasury committee: ‘Changing the benefit rules for EU migration so that they become more difficult to obtain – you are asking me what impact that is likely to have? In my opinion: not much. 

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith yesterday insisted the proposal was still alive, despite a warning from EU President Donald Tusk that there is ‘no consensus’ on a deal in Europe

Any changes to benefit rules are unlikely to have a huge impact on migration flows.’ His comments will fuel concerns that benefits are only a small factor in migration from EU states with high unemployment.

Tory critics, including London mayor Boris Johnson, want Mr Cameron to demand more direct controls, a move resisted by Germany’s Angela Merkel.

Senior Tory MP Bernard Jenkin said Britain’s ‘national living wage’ rising to £9 an hour would outweigh any curbs on benefits: ‘The pull factor for EU migrants from poorer countries is much higher wages.

‘The replacement of benefits with the living wage will increase that. The only way to get control of immigration is to take back control of our borders and the only way to do that is to vote to leave the EU.’ Stephen Parkinson, of the Vote Leave campaign, said the independent OBR experts had given a ‘damning verdict’.

‘The Government is trying to manufacture a row with the EU to make its demands look more significant,’ he said.

Mr Cameron’s spokesman said curbing benefits would make the UK less attractive to economic migrants. 

The Prime Minister faces a frosty reception as he visits Poland today. 

Although its Right-wing Law and Justice regime shares his scepticism of the EU, with more than 850,000 Poles in the UK, Warsaw is against his curb on migrant benefits, according to the Financial Times. 

An official told the newspaper: ‘This is a red line. It is purely discriminatory.’