Newly unearthed government documents have disclosed that senior ministers pushed for a delay in conferring employment privileges to eastern and central European migrants following the European Union’s enlargement in 2004.
In February of that year, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, noted that his country stood out from the larger EU member states as the only one to provide an “exception”.
The concession was made in order for individuals from Poland and other countries that had lately joined the EU to be allowed to work in the UK as of May 1st.
Most other major European nations had a two-year wait for this privilege, with Italy being the exception. Except for Ireland, the smaller EU countries also had special work permit regulations in place to cap the number of permits.
Declassified documents from the National Archives reveal that Straw suggested a six-month pause for the UK, dating back 20 years.
He stated, “We may encounter a particularly challenging situation in early May”.
He cautioned that the UK might need to revoke the concession in the most adverse or unlikely of scenarios.
Straw’s letter was shared with other high-level cabinet members; it had been endorsed by the then-deputy prime minister, John Prescott.
He expressed being “extremely concerned” about the potential consequences on social housing.
He expressed concerns that many workers would move to London and the South East, only to find it difficult to secure decent housing, leading them to share cramped, unsatisfactory accommodations.
However, the then-Home Secretary, David Blunkett, contended that the economy required “flexibility and productivity” these new employees could offer, in this case, asylum seekers.
The number of Polish nationals residing in the UK increased substantially over the course of the following ten years, going from approximately 69,000 to nearly 853,000.
Blair inquired about the possibility of obtaining work permits in the UK; however, the Home Office hastily developed an alternative policy framework, formally known as “workers registration scheme”.
The scheme necessitated A8 workers from the eight new member states to pay a fee and mandatorily register their employment for a specific job, failing which would entail a substantial fine.
From May 2004, Number 10 tracked these registration numbers on a weekly basis.
The government was especially concerned because it had publicly forecast that merely about 13,000 new staff members would arrive in Britain annually following the EU’s expansion.
Files reveal that Kate Gross, a senior aide to the Prime Minister, drafted a letter to the prime minister on July 2, 2004.
She distributed a press briefing note stating “the unexpectedly large numbers predicted by the media have yet to materialise”, despite having surpassed the initially forecasted figure of 13,000.
She stated that although nearly 24,000 individuals had enrolled in the program, most of them had been residing within the UK prior to the 1st of May.
Kate Gross’s memo highlights that the majority, aged 18-34, were without evidence of exploiting the benefits system.
As Kate Gross pointed out, the critical aspect to consider is the connection between these new statistics and the Home Office’s previous projections.
She predicted that if applications continued to rise, the estimated number of new arrivals in May 2005 would reach approximately between 50,000 and 60,000.
Subsequent data for the initiative indicated a decline, with a briefing document for Number 10 stating: “It appears that we have passed the zenith of applications.”
The Immigration and Nationality Directorate “should be congratulated on efficiently implementing the foreign worker registration program, as planned”.
The issue at hand was the scheme’s ineffectiveness resulted in an inaccurate report.
The self-employed were exempt from registration, which inadvertently discounted the participation of many workers such as carpenters.
There was a lack of strong implementation or enforcement of the required measures.
The UK’s worker registration scheme was found to be inadequate in late 2005, as stated by the WRS, which attributed this to a remarkably low number; specifically, only 95 Polish plumbers were registered throughout the entire country.
Research by the Daily Mail discovered that in the span of a single day, there were 95 Polish plumbers found to be working in London.
During the following few years, numerous thousands of people from Austria (A8 nationals), primarily from Poland, relocated to the United Kingdom.
According to the 2021 census, approximately 743,000 individuals born in Poland currently reside in Britain.
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