Christopher Chope – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Christopher Chope on 2015-11-06.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 2 November 2015 to Question 13969, what information his Department has to help inform policy development on the payment of child and tax credits to foreign nationals.
Damian Hinds
In his speech on Europe on November 10th, the Prime Minister reaffirmed the Government’s proposal that people coming to Britain from the EU must live here and contribute for 4 years before they qualify for in work benefits or social housing. This proposal is included in the Prime Minister’s letter to Mr. Tusk.
DWP’s statistical release from November 10th explained that it is estimated that, at March 2013, between 37 and 45% of the EEA nationals (excluding students) who were resident in the UK having arrived in the preceding 4 years were in households claiming either an in-work or out-of-work benefit or tax credit.
This represents between 195,000 and 235,000 EEA nationals in recently arrived households claiming benefits or tax credits at March 2013 out of 525,000 recently arrived EEA nationals resident in the UK at March 2013.
