1. Diminished citizenship: The impact of restricted welfare rights on the lives of European Economic Area (EEA) migrants in the UK Presentation for the Council for European Studies (CES) Conference of Europeanists 2016, Philadelphia, 15 th April 2016 Dr Lisa Scullion, University of Salford, UK Professor Peter Dwyer, University of York, UK Katy Jones, University of Salford, UK Dr Alasdair Stewart, University of Glasgow

2. Part 1: Introduction to Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change  Overview of the project – aims, methods, progress Part 2: Migrants and conditionality: Policy context  What is happening in relation to migrants? Part 3: Emerging findings  Interactions with Job Centre Plus  Experiences of the Work Programme  Genuine Prospect of Work Test/Habitual Residency Test Overview of presentation 2

3. Part 1: Introduction to Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change 3

4.  Welfare recipients subject to various forms of conditions (Clasen and Clegg, 2007): –Conditions of category: membership of defined category (e.g. disabled, unemployed, etc.) –Conditions of circumstance: includes/excludes people depending on circumstances (e.g. passing means test) –Conditions of conduct: demanding particular patterns of behaviour (behavioural conditions)  ‘Conditionality consensus’ –Successive Governments have increased the focus on conduct conditionality –Discourse around ‘responsibilities’ as well as ‘rights’ (Dwyer, 2016) –Conditionality now cuts across a range of policy areas/groups (e.g. unemployment, disability, homelessness, social housing, ASB/FIP, etc.) Access to certain basic publicly provided welfare entitlements should “be subject to the condition that those who receive them behave in particular ways, or participate in specified activities” (Deacon, 1994: 53) “A new politics of welfare intent on converting the welfare benefits system into a lever for changing behaviour” (Rodgers, 2008 :87). What do we mean by welfare conditionality? 4

5. Twin aims  To consider the ethics and efficacy of welfare conditionality Fieldwork with three sets of respondents 1.Semi-structured interviews with 40 policymakers 2.24 focus groups with frontline welfare practitioners who implement policy and work with welfare service users 3.Three rounds of repeat qualitative longitudinal interviews with a diverse sample of 480 welfare recipients who are subject to conditionality i.e. 1440 interviews in total. Progress  Policymaker/practitioner consultation completed  Wave A interviews completed and half way through Wave B  Wave A findings to be published May 2016 Funded by ESRC grant ES/K002163​/2 Welfare conditionality: sanctions, support and behaviour change (2013-2018) 5

6.  Exploring welfare conditionality across a range of policy domains and groups Recipients of social security benefits (unemployed people, lone parents, disabled people, Universal Credit), homeless people, social tenants, individuals/families subject to antisocial behaviour orders/family intervention projects, offenders and migrants  Locations across England and Scotland Bath, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, London, Manchester, Peterborough, Salford, Sheffield, Warrington Welfare conditionality: sanctions, support and behaviour change (2013-2018) 6

7. Part 2: Migrants and conditionality: policy context 7

8.  Conditionality operates at two key levels for migrants:  Macro level: the ways in which UK immigration and welfare policies intersect to establish and structure the diverse rights and responsibilities of different migrant groups living in the UK  Micro level: the ways in which migrants may experience behavioural conditionality in their interactions with welfare agencies that implement interventions that combine elements of sanction and support Migrants and conditionality 8

9.  Hostile immigration policy: separation of asylum support, migration cap, points based tier system for TCNs, development of ‘activationist–plus’ regime for EEA migrants (O’Brien, 2013)  Socio-legal status: complex tiering of entitlement re rights to residence, work and welfare, no recourse to public funds and destitution for some (e.g. failed asylum seekers, irregular migrants)  Racist welfare state: how issues of race and ethnic difference and diversity may impact on the ‘street level’ implementation of policy and migrants’ experiences of welfare services (Craig, 2007)  Reconfiguration of social citizenship: personalised, intensified and extended conditionality, towards ‘ubiquitous conditionality’ and the sanctioning state (Dwyer, 1998; Dwyer and Wright, 2013)  Austerity and welfare retrenchment: reduction in support and the emergence of a popular ‘politics of resentment’ (Hoggett et al., 2013) Wider context of immigration and welfare debates in the UK 9

10. Part 3: Emerging findings 10

11.  A person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence for a period of at least a year (12 months), so that the country of destination effectively becomes his or her new country of usual residence (UN, 2013)  Adults eligible for social welfare benefits in the UK i.e. is either: -a European Economic Area (EEA) migrant; or -a Third Country National (TCN) with positive outcomes to their asylum claims (e.g. Refugee Status, Discretionary Leave to Remain, Humanitarian Protection Status, Indefinite Leave to Remain)  Had current experience of welfare benefits, services or interventions in which ‘conduct conditionality’ was an element at Wave A  Has NOT been granted British Citizenship Defining ‘migrants’ in our sample 11

12. Total: 32 Gender: 15 Men 17 Women Nationality:Polish10 Romanian6 Slovak4 Latvian2 Estonian2 Lithuanian2 Czech2 Portuguese 2 Dutch1 Spanish1 Our EEA migrant sample 12

13.  Language barriers There's one Slovak person employed at the Jobcentre, so sometimes he's there and sometimes they get them on the language line just to translate…My friend speaks very good English so he has helped me with the form… Jobcentre send him me school… It was compulsory, yes. They would stop my benefit if I wouldn't attend school (WSU-SH-EB-017a) The reason is because when you're calling by yourself, it's many problems with the language, this is the problem, and actually they [the Job Centre] don't want to help as well for some people like we are, foreigners. So, I just come here [voluntary sector organisation] because when [voluntary sector worker] called them, always been, as well, always been everything fast, everything is normal. When I call, sometimes I don't understand what they ask me and they said, 'You don't understand now when we just tried to ask you something and you said to me something. You understand everything, but you don't understand the question that I give you?' Yes, I don't understand this, what they said to me. Sometimes I just ask for slow speaking because I don't understand and they've just been like angry at me because I don't understand this (WSU-PE-LS-012a) If you don't know English, it's very difficult to access this online. There isn't anybody, if you don't know English, to come and support you. My opinion is that in the Jobcentre there are loads of people working there but there is very little work being done. Possibly somebody is asking them to do just that; that's my opinion (WSU-BR-JM-009a) Interactions with Job Centre Plus 13

14.  Discriminatory and racialised attitudes They don't give you any advice at the Jobcentre. They treat you like you are nobody and they really don't treat you the right way…In here I'm just treated absolutely atrociously, like I'm not a person… 'Because you're Polish, simple, because you're not from here'. They are overwhelmed by the flow of Polish people [here] and they just don't like it and they're going to treat you the way they feel about you, simple as that. They don't even look into the fact that I don't ask the government to pay for the translators…I don't require that and they still don't want to treat you the right way (WSU-PE-LS- 010a) Maybe not [just] the Polish, the foreigners, every [migrant], I think they have the problem as well because sometimes I just hear that, like the person who's sitting with me when we've been first meeting, he's said to me that he just called the Job Centre because he just wanted Housing Benefit or something. They said to him, 'You can't have [Housing Benefit] because you are foreigners, so you can't.' 'Why can't I?‘…In the Jobcentre somebody just said that they phoned somebody higher, just had a laugh and just said back ‘they're not allowed, just tell them they are not allowed to have that benefit because they are foreigners’ (WSU-PE-LS-012a) Interactions with Job Centre Plus 14

15.  Support or control? I was sent to some seminars that were a waste of time, and intellectually insulting, I believe, so they were not really tailor-made, it was just work related things that if you don't do then they sanction you... My adviser was all the time speaking about sanctions, even when he was dealing with other clients, he was all the time, sanction, sanction. Every ten words he would say sanction once or twice…Just go to the waiting room, stay there just in case someone from the Work Programme provider would come and see that you're there. They need to see that you're there, that's the only thing, that you're physically present (WSU-LO-LS-004a) I had the appointment for one hour and I'm looking for the computer about the job. I said, it's no problem for me doing the same in home. I give you the signatory and I give the phone number when I phone. They say it's not possible, you need to come in for the [Work Programme provider] for one hour and look for the job (WSU-BR-JM-011a) I'm just supposed to be working for free to do cleaning or whoever, or painting… We just have to go, sign in, sit for half a day in the dust and there were no toilets, no water, nothing (WSU-LO-KJ-004a) The Work Programme and mandatory training 15

16.  Complexity and confusion The workers in those Jobcentres… When they see a foreign passport and some sort of data or some background which is non-British, they're completely at a loss and they're not able to fill forms, advise you on the forms or aid you with anything (WSU-LO-PD-001a) The people in the Jobcentre they don't know the legislation, they have no idea what the law says regarding especially migrants (WSU-LO-PD-003a) I have many letters and every letter is different. My first letter maybe seven months ago was positive and nice… [subsequently] You give me a letter that says everything is all right and then the next step you say it's not all right because someone missed something (WSU-BR-PD-001a) One of the advisers advised me the wrong way to get ESA, which I have not got… I'm still in arrears with my landlord because of all this…They advised me to go on Income Support [but] I would not pass the habitual residency status due to my leave for my internship…That wasn't quite fair to even say that and let me go for something that I would not get due to the fact that they have not been trained enough to be giving me all that information…So yes, that affected me that badly [then] my landlord gave me the eviction notice…They didn't reinstate my Jobseeker's and due to the fact that they stopped my Jobseeker's in January, they classed me not as a rapid reclaim, not as a person that has been in the UK before. They still classed me as I came to the UK three months on the new benefit cap basis (WSU-PE-LS-010a) Genuine Prospect of Work and Habitual Residency? 16

17.  Increasing ‘burden of proof’ on migrants I'd gone to this Jobcentre [location] three or four weeks just for signing and then… I was told I'm not entitled because of the new regulations [GPWT]. I have this book where I write how I'm looking for a job, what did I do, what I'm going to do. It's not enough for them because they need the proof that in the future I will get a job in the form of a letter for your potential employer… it's the way to nowhere, so in the sense nobody could obtain these benefits, because I couldn't find an employer who'll guarantee you a job in three/four months' time...I couldn’t prove that I will be employed in the future (WSU-LO-KJ-003a) [T]hey should have treated me as a British citizen because this condition with genuine prospect of work is for EU citizens who arrived in this country recently. But because I'd been in this country for 12 years I thought I am actually entitled, I am an EU citizen which is a permanent resident of the UK…I tried to get those people to acknowledge that…Genuine prospect of work, these people said, 'No, we don't believe you have it'… that was their final decision (WSU-LO-PD-003a) …. [12 months later] … Because I had a job offer, I could show them that this is a genuine prospect of work…So they paid me JSA for a brief period of time from my job offer to my starting date…How was I surviving during that time [without benefits]? I was not paying my rent. (WSU-LO-PD-003b) It has smashed my life like this. I am exhausted. I don't know what I can do or where I can go…The Jobcentre said they didn't have any more information about how long I've been working...She knew all the information about who I am and how many years I've been working in this country. I have lots of photocopies of these documents… it's not easy for me because the Jobcentre hasn't accepted who I am… the Jobcentre says No, No. (WSU-BR-PD- 001a) Genuine Prospect of Work and Habitual Residency? 17

18.  What is the agenda? I'm not blind. I know there is a crisis situation in Europe. I know it's so hard to keep the system together and there are millions of people like me (WSU-BR-PD-001b) Well, I can't stop thinking of the fact why did they do this, and I know they do it for political reasons, not for economic reasons, so it's difficult for me to put that aside (WSU-LO-PD-003b). I think they are less interested in whether or not this effects a behavioural change, and they are more interested in restricting, in attempting to restrict, the number of EU migrants that are legitimately able to come to the UK to exercise their free movement rights… they are much more fundamentally wanting to restrict free movement generally (Policy Maker 20) Genuine Prospect of Work and Habitual Residency? 18

19.  Inadequate/inappropriate training and support coupled with intensified and expanded sanctions regime (generic issue)  Shift in the role of the Jobcentre from supporting people into work to policing work search activities/responsibilities of claimants and disciplining those who do not conform (generic issue)  Language issues compound many migrant claimants problems when interacting with Job Centre Plus and Work Programme providers  Complexity of ‘rules’ in relation to migrant claimants  Discriminatory and racialised attitudes of advisers  Increasing ‘burden of proof’ on migrants as part of GPWT/HRT … meeting ‘responsibilities’ but no ‘rights’  Leading to … Diminished citizenship:  Social welfare recipients rights in the UK are increasingly restricted due to the extension and intensification of conditionality (generic issue)  EEA migrants rights as mobile EU citizens are being further curtailed counter to the tenets of EU citizenship as the UK Government grapples with the possibility of ‘Brexit’? Conclusions 19

20. Thank you Dr Lisa Scullion, Reader in Social Policy and Associate Director, Sustainable Housing & Urban Studies Unit (SHUSU), University of Salford, Salford, UK, M6 6UP, tel: +44 (0)161 295 5078, email: l.scullion@salford.ac.uk Project website: www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk Follow us on Twitter @WelCond For further information about the project contact: Vici Armitage, Project Manager, Welfare Conditionality, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, YO10 5DD, UK, tel: +44 (0)1904 321299, email: vici.armitage@york.ac.uk