Nicholas Soames – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-11-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much was spent from the public purse on the payment of social security benefits to non-UK citizens in each European Economic Area country for each year from 1997-98 to 2014-15.

Priti Patel

The full information requested is not held centrally.

The Department for Work and Pensions checks the nationality and immigration status of benefit claimants to ensure the benefit is paid properly and to prevent fraud. While this information is used, it is not recorded as part of the benefit payment administrative systems.

Benefit Expenditure and Caseload tables are published on Gov.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/474453/expenditure-by-country-and-region-2014-15.xlsx

Please note that these figures include a breakdown for UK regions and a combined figure for expenditure abroad or where the region is unknown. Expenditure is not broken down by nationality.

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