Curbs on migrant legal aid claims

Rather strange release from the Press Association has David Cameron saying that the UK “can no longer grant legal aid to non-UK nationals or for civil cases, people who are facing housing cases or benefit cases”. They say that the Prime Minister told the Daily Express he had asked Justice Secretary Chris Grayling to develop a “residency test” to ensure migrants did not get automatic access to legal aid for cases in the civil courts.

Given that welfare benefits cases have all been as good as completely removed from scope to any useful degree, this does seem like a rather bizarre statement to be making.

For the PA release, see Curbs on migrant legal aid claims

If you want the unexpurgated version of his Express interview, where he also says that the £26,000 limit on benefit claims could be reduced in many parts of the country to reflect local prices, see David Cameron vows to get tough on freeloading foreigners

Paul

If I did not work for a local authority then I would say that you appear to be making the classic mistake of thinking that the PM knows what he is talking about!!

Shabir

Cameron, in a piece of sleight of hand says “We’ve seen the level of net migration come down by a quarter over the last two- and-a-half years. I want to see further progress.”  What he fails to say is that migration generally rises when the economy is growing and then falls back when the economy stops growing.  So since we’ve had two and a half years of austerity then the figures are hardly surprising are they?  Does he think that the Tories should take credit for that, as a flat lining economy being a deliberate strategy for reducing migration? 

In a similar vein recently, IDS said that access to benefits has never been part of the European Union, giving the impression to the uninformed that foreigners claiming benefits is somehow an aberration that came about by accident or New Labour carelessness, and the Tories would now sort it out.  True, access to benefits has never been part of the EU as the EU is a political union.  Access to benefits is part of the European Community (EC) which is a legal union.  A clever and correct distinction but entirely disingenuous.