Political centrepiece of government's third Commons agenda will be promise to restrict EU migrants' access to welfare
David Cameron will today make his most concerted effort yet to prevent a stampede of his core vote to Ukip by unveiling measures to stem the flow of EU migrants to Britain, including imposing fines on private landlords if they do not check the immigration status of their tenants.
Landlords will face fines of thousands of pounds under proposals due to be unveiled in the Queen's speech today.
The political centrepiece of Cameron's third Queen's speech will be a promise to restrict EU migrants' access to jobseeker's allowance to six months, issue new guidance to local authorities to give priority to local people in social housing, and place new responsibilities on EU member states to pay if their citizens use the NHS.
There will also be tougher fines on businesses that use illegal labour.
The six-month restriction to jobseeker's allowance will apply to all EU nationals who are not actively seeking work and cannot show that they have a genuine chance of getting work.
Cameron will introduce a new residence test requiring most individuals to be lawfully resident in the UK for at least 12 months before they gain access to civil legal aid. But the measures, designed to slow the flow of workers to the UK, come only a day before new EU commission proposals designed to make it easier for EU citizens to work anywhere in the EU.
Cameron hopes that such raw meat will soothe the disaffection on the right that was revealed in last week's local elections. But he will also hope to quell the growing clamour on the Tory backbenches for a referendum bill on EU membership in this parliamentary session.
An exasperated Cameron was yesterday forced to welcome a call from the 81-year-old Lord Lawson for Britain to quit the EU. The former chancellor said it was a bureaucratic monstrosity damaging the interests of the City of London. Cameron found himself on the back foot, defending his plans to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership in the face of Lawson's contemptuous assessment that he will secure only "piffling changes".
As Conservative MPs hailed Lawson for creating a "game-changing" moment, the prime minister rejected Lawson's intervention and insisted he would be able to secure real changes in Britain's membership terms.
"I want to give people a choice not between the status quo and leaving the European Union," the prime minister said at a conference on Somalia in London.
"I want to give people a proper choice between Britain remaining in a reformed EU or leaving that EU. That's the choice that people will have. That is the choice that people want. And there is only one way to get it and that will be by supporting the Conservatives at the next election. Frankly, I welcome the attention that is being put on this very clear promise."
But Bernard Jenkin, the former shadow defence secretary, sided with Lawson, saying it was "moonshine" for No 10 to assume Cameron could reform the EU.
Some Tories responded to Lawson's remarks by saying he had afforded respectability to Ukip. They also said that the former chancellor had given cover to anti-EU Tory MPs who have been nervous about speaking out.
One MP said: "The Lawson intervention is transformational; it is potentially a game changing moment. Ukip can say to us: 'You said we were fruitcakes and now Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving chancellor says we are right.' Conservatives who want to leave the EU but who have been nervous about saying so will now feel less worried about saying that."
Lawson's intervention, in The Times yesterday, also led to an array of Tory MPs touring the TV studios to argue over Britain's relationship with the EU.
The latest development has probably crushed Cameron's lingering hope that he had manage to shelve the EU issue by promising in January that he would hold an in-out referendum after the 2015 election. With the Liberal Democrats opposed to a bill on a referendum ahead of the election, the prime minister is unable to satisfy his backbench rebels.
Theresa May, the home secretary, will use the immigration bill, due to be fully published in the autumn, to address another touchstone issue by recasting the law to make it easier to deport suspected criminals or terrorists such as the Muslim preacher Abu Qatada.
May will change the law to make it impossible for such figures to remain in the UK by citing Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, and the right to family life.
Ministers say the Article had been abused by criminals to circumvent rules that automatically deport any offender sentenced to more than 12 months in prison. She has already issued guidance to the UK judiciary, but believes only the full force of a change in the law will persuade UK judges not to defer to the Human Rights Act in such cases.
Jenkin warned the Conservative Party is getting increasingly difficult to manage adding he did not rule out defections by Conservative MPs to UKIP unless Cameron finds time to stage the referendum bill.
Cameron's aides insisted the emphasis on the EU and immigration in the Queen's speech had been decided ahead of Ukip's surge. They argued that the whole of the speech should be seen through the prism of Cameron's twin themes of winning the global race and backing those who work hard to get on in life.
The PM will acknowledge how tough voters are finding the squeeze on living standards, saying: "We knew the road ahead would be tough, and so it has proved. But three years on, our resolve to turn our country around has never been stronger."