"British jobs for British workers."

[miasmum]

I think we will have to agree to differ

I suppose I don't think of working tax credits and family tax credits as benefits, to be honest. We claimed them when Tim was at uni, together with Carer's Allowance. Lets be honest that was 2004-2008 and I was a low paid worker. It is now 2015 and I work more hours, but still don't earn enough to pay tax. I always think of things like Job Seekers Allowance and Employment Support Allowance as benefits. I don't think of DLA as a benefit either.

I spend a lot of time filling in Employment Support Allowance forms for people that are too ill or disabled to work. I struggle to find any evidence for their suicidal tendencies, their bad backs, their learning disability, their agoraphobia, their inability to travel on buses for interviews.

I also do a baby immunisation clinic one morning. I see a lot of young, single mums. The majority have the latest phone, gorgeous nails, handbags, posh prams. These are the ones, like my friends, daughter that get more money to stay at home than to do a low paid job in a restaurant, in a shop etc with all the added hassle of childcare. I don't mean older people who have worked all their lives, no they are not better off on benefits.

Sadly there are people that do not want to claim of course there are, but I am not convinced that they are the majority. I don't think the out and out scroungers are the majority either, but I think their numbers are higher.

As my old mum used to say, life isn't black and white its a dirty shade of grey.

Thanks WM always a pleasure debating with you

[Workingman]

We might disagree, but at least we can do it in style and not fall out.

I am with your mum regarding the dirty shades of grey. There are all sorts of benefits and we should never lump them together.

Enjoy the F1 season if you can.

[miasmum]

Thank you, going to watch todays race in a short while as we had Luke home today.

Of course we don't fall out, it would make me too sad to fall out with you and I respect you too much.

[Suff]

We don't bring in Indian workers for IT jobs, we take the jobs over there.

For call centres maybe, but I work in this business and I also do projects where we do the tendering for work and I have a lot of experience on the RFP and purchasing process. When we contract with Wipro, HCL, Infosys, Cognizant or TATA; we pull in teams of workers from India. Yes they are only there for the project, but projects go on and on and on.

Recently I was part of a tender process for a migration of mail services. Infosys (all Indian), was £900,000, Cap Gemini (mix of Indian and European), was £1.5m, T-Systems (all European), was £5m.

In that scenario, what are we going to do except suck in the Indian IT workforces???

I see everything that has been said here, but the additional 5m people who are now claiming benefits (not jsa which is only for 6 months), are not all unemployable. But they are not going to be employed so long as there are Europeans and other immigrants willing to live at a living standard which is below the UK benefits level and take a wage which keeps them there.

I helped my daughter (single mother 2 children), off benefits and into a self employed career. It was not cheap and it went on for a long time before she could become established and able to fend for herself. Yet, 2 years after setting up her business, she is still very vulnerable to any circumstance changes in her life and NOBODY is there willing to help. In many way's she'd be better off on benefits but she wants her independence and the ability to get past today and have a decent life. For which she is working up to 14 hours a day 6 days a week.

It is one of the reasons I'm anti EU. Because we don't understand it, we won't play the game and we won't help with the creation of checks and balances which make the whole stupid house of cards stand up. So we get abused and the most vulnerable in our society pay the price.

[Workingman]

Sorry to say this, but many of these people are not coming here to be British, they are here to make their lives better back home.

A very few of them, a miniscule number of the total, are very well qualified, but the majority are low or semi-skilled. We also have people with similar qualifications who cannot get work. Do not pretend that is not the case.

If these people are coming from Africa or India and Asia, and 3/4 of them are, the blame cannot in any way shape or form be laid at the door of the EU. We, the UK, could stop them at the border.... if we had some sort of border control.

[KateLMead]

Better those advertisers / UK companies were brought to book,the authorities should find a way of inflicting heavy fines and do whatever is necessary etc on those companies who advertise overseas for workers to come to the UK

[Kaz]

What Frank said!

[Suff]

As I read the stats last time, it was just under 50% EU with the rest coming from outside.

WM is right. These people are coming to get rich (relatively) and get out. That is a time honoured thing in the rest of the EU. The richer central states abound with restaurants which thrive for 5 years and then vanish. Because the people who own them are working 7 days a week and often 14 hours a day to make their fortune to take home. Where they can buy property and another business at which they can pay people to work at for them.

It is because of this that the central EU "rich" nations have had to create regulations which stifle cross EU work migration. Something we are not doing because we've bought the whole "free movement of workers" BS and are taking them at their word for it.

I guess we'll learn after we have 10m extra people in the country. However by then it will be way too late.....

[TheOstrich]

In that scenario, what are we going to do except suck in the Indian IT workforces???

Perhaps the answer to that question is "be careful what you wish for ...."

I have an old school mate who worked for British Steel on their bespoke but antiquated computer management systems. Eventually he was "transferred" to CapGemini and British Steel were bought out by Tata.

Tata and CapGemini then wanted to outsource most of my friend's team's jobs to India. So Indian IT graduates were brought over to Rotherham to learn the systems. They found it very difficult, not only because the system was technologically "old", but also because when it came to trouble-shooting problems, the Indians had absolutely no idea how to think "outside the box". None!

My friend took early redundancy. And it was severance, not retirement. When I asked him if he would consider going back to help out in the event of a problem - after all, he had been associated with that bespoke software for virtually all his working life - he told me simply "No!". I think he felt that as they had made their own beds, they could lie in it ......

[Workingman]

Nearly seven years in Germany, two years working every other week in Paris, and ten years holidaying in the same town in France. I did not see much evidence of cafes and bars closing down - they were too valuable. What I did see was places changing hands, often to the same nationals as the vendors, and so the golden goose was passed on.

I see the same thing happening here in Leeds. Once good money has been made the place is sold on to the next in line. Yes, they do work long hours and every day available, but their money goes back home with only the barest minimum going into the Leeds economy. And as a lot of these are cash businesses there has to be some tax avoidance going on.