Benefit brake '˜can't stop a bike'

The Eurosceptic and one-time contender to lead the party lampooned Mr Cameron’s EU deal as ultimately having ‘little impact, if any’ on the nature of the EU, and no impact at all on dissuading migrants to come to the country.

His warning comes as fellow Yorkshire MP Andrea Jenkyns gave her strongest indication yet that she will be voting to leave.

Her admission on ITV’s political programme Last Orders last night is said to have ruffled feathers among party members, many of whom were expecting the new MP to publicly align herself with the Prime Minister’s desire to remain in a reformed union.

A spokesman for the MP, who took her seat for the Conservatives by toppling Labour’s Ed Balls at the May General Election, said on the ‘balance of probabilities’ she will ‘vote Out’.

He said the Morley and Outwood MP is a ‘well known Eurosceptic’ but would still wait to see what deal the Prime Minister finally strikes when he takes his proposal to the 27 member states later this month.

He said: “She has always been frank about her Euroscepticism. On the balance of probabilities the likelihood is that she will vote out but will take a look at the Prime Minister’s deal following the EU Council.”

Fellow Yorkshire MP Philip Davies, the member for Shipley, has also made it clear this week that he will be voting to leave.

In a speech delivered in central London yesterday, Haltemprice and Howden MP David Davis said the so-called brake in-work benefits for four years will be meaningless because of the 265,000 people who migrated to the UK, most of them are from poor Eastern European countries who will not be put off by the proposed changes.

He said very few migrants claim in-work benefits in the first few years of their arrival, and since most do not have children so they are not paid a considerable amount in child tax credits.

Futhermore, by the time they are likely to claim, usually up to four years after arrival, a single person on the minimum wage would only be eligible for £10 a month in tax credits.

“Not even with a very generous leap of imagination can anyone believe that the loss of this amount would dissuade people from coming to this country,” he said.

“The other problem with the brake is that the Government’s own policy to dramatically raise the minimum wage in the form of the national living wage will have the effect of abolishing in-work benefits.

“By 2020 when the living wage is due to be £9 per hour, and the personal tax allowance has risen further, in-work benefits will be minimal. And the minimum wage in this country will be an even greater multiple of the average wage of the poorest EU members.”

Describing the union as a ‘crumbling relic from a gloomy past’, he said he preferred Canada’s relationship with the EU and Britain should try and strike a similar arrangement.

The former chairman of the Conservative Party praised the country for having gained a full scale free trade agreement, but without the freedom of movement of people, through their Canadian Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

He said: “This would be a perfectly good starting point for our discussions with the Commission.”

Bill Carmichael: Page 13.