Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding to the announcement that from 1 January 2014 all EU jobseekers will have to wait for three months before they can apply to claim out of work benefits, said:

“Labour called for these benefit restrictions nine months ago. Yet David Cameron has left it until the very last minute to squeeze this change in.

“Why is the Government leaving everything until the last minute and operating in such a chaotic way? Three weeks ago Theresa May told Parliament she couldn’t restrict benefits in time, now the Prime Minister says they can. They wouldn’t be on the run from angry Conservative backbenchers if they’d listened to us nine months ago.

“Three days ago, Theresa May hinted she was planning a cap on all EU countries. Then she was forced to admit it was only for new countries. A month ago they had a flagship immigration bill - now it’s disappeared.

“They still haven’t taken action on the rest of Labour’s proposals to stop immigration being exploited to undercut wages and jobs for local workers.

“The Government should urgently beef up enforcement against agencies which only recruit from abroad, dodgy gangmasters and targeting sectors that are reliant on migrant labour to ensure they are working to train employees.

“We need urgent changes to minimum-wage enforcement to stop exploitation of European workers which is bad for them, bad for local workers who are undercut and bad for responsible employers too.”