Poles in London

An estimated 400,000 Poles live in Britain, having taken advantage of the government's decision to open its labour markets to workers from the accession countries of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia since they joined the EU in May 2004.

Barka estimates that of these, about 45,000 are living in squalor, although up to 100,000 could be in difficulty.

Tim Nicholls, the director of the Simon Community, a London homelessness charity which approached the Barka Foundation, estimates that up to 35 per cent of the people it encounters on its daily soup runs in the capital are from Poland.