- Joined
- Apr 26, 2011
- Messages
- 12,631
- Points
- 113
Migrants handed £1m a week for children back home as thousands of British families are stripped of THEIR child benefit
Cash is awarded despite the children living in another country
Critics blast taxpayer cash going to dependents in countries like Poland
Situation will worsen when Romanians and Bulgarians allowed UK jobs
The payments include child benefit – which was stripped from more than one million British families last month.
It costs the taxpayer an astonishing £55million a year to fund this system, which is only replicated in four other EU countries. The other 22 nations require the child to be resident in order to qualify.
UK payments relate to cases where migrants have moved to Britain, but left their children at home. When they arrive in the UK, they register with HM Revenue & Customs for the benefit.
The money is then paid direct to them, so it can be sent home. The children do not have to live in the UK or even have visited.
Migrants choose to claim the money from the UK government – rather than in equivalent schemes at home – because the payments are much higher.
In Poland, child benefit is around £5 a week. In Britain, it is £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 for every other child.
From the end of this year, almost 30million residents from the two former Eastern Bloc countries will be entitled to live and work freely in the UK.
Any migrant who moves here from either country will be entitled to claim child benefit and child tax credits.
Cash is awarded despite the children living in another country
Critics blast taxpayer cash going to dependents in countries like Poland
Situation will worsen when Romanians and Bulgarians allowed UK jobs
The payments include child benefit – which was stripped from more than one million British families last month.
It costs the taxpayer an astonishing £55million a year to fund this system, which is only replicated in four other EU countries. The other 22 nations require the child to be resident in order to qualify.
UK payments relate to cases where migrants have moved to Britain, but left their children at home. When they arrive in the UK, they register with HM Revenue & Customs for the benefit.
The money is then paid direct to them, so it can be sent home. The children do not have to live in the UK or even have visited.
Migrants choose to claim the money from the UK government – rather than in equivalent schemes at home – because the payments are much higher.
In Poland, child benefit is around £5 a week. In Britain, it is £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 for every other child.
From the end of this year, almost 30million residents from the two former Eastern Bloc countries will be entitled to live and work freely in the UK.
Any migrant who moves here from either country will be entitled to claim child benefit and child tax credits.
