Ministers called for Tony Blair to delay granting employment rights to central and eastern European immigrants after the European Union (EU) expansion in 2004, according to newly released files from the National Archives. As part of a concession, Poland and other newly-joined EU countries were allowed to work in the UK after May 1, 2004, but most larger EU members indicated they would not allow this for two years. In February 2004, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned Blair that the UK could face a difficult situation if work permits were granted too quickly. Papers show he proposed delaying the employment rights for six months due to concerns over social housing and the impact on employment.
Other senior figures agreed with Straw; deputy prime minister John Prescott expressed his explicit concerns about the negative impact of ‘overcrowded housing’ and how many workers would come to London and the South East. However, the then-home secretary David Blunkett argued that the economy needed the ‘flexibility and productivity’ that these new workers could provide. Instead, the Home Office drew up a “workers’ registration scheme” requiring A8 workers to pay a fee and register their employment in a specific job.
The government closely monitored these registration numbers from May 2004 onwards, concerned since it had publicly estimated only about 13,000 new workers a year would come to Britain after the EU expanded. While 24,000 people had registered with the scheme, most had been living in the UK before 1 May. Blair scrawled ‘that is the key’ in response to Gross’s memo explaining that there was no evidence of them ‘exploiting the benefits system’. However, there was “little enforcement” as self-employed workers did not have to register, excluding many building workers like carpenters and making the scheme a somewhat imprecise record
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