Benefits ABROAD
A rising proportion of benefits are going to UK citizens living in foreign countries
BILLIONS of pounds-worth of benefits are being handed out to British people living overseas every year, figures from the Department for Work and Pensions reveal.
In 2017/18 alone, £4.05 billion in benefits was sent to UK citizens living abroad - up from £3.98 billion in 2016/17.
It’s the highest amount on modern record, and works out as 2.28% of all benefits payments made in the UK.
Comparable figures go back to 2001/02, when 1.68% of all benefits were made to claimants living abroad - £1.59 million in total.
The UK government allows citizens living abroad to claim a number of benefits.
These include job seeker’ s allowance, maternity and childcare benefits, illness and injury benefits, benefits for carers and people with disabilities, bereavement benefits and winter fuel payments.
The vast majority of benefits sent overseas in 2017/18 (£3.95 billion) was made in state pension payments.
That is an increase from the £3.88 billion the previous year.
Some £25 million was sent abroad in employment and support allowance, followed by £20 million in bereavement benefits, £16 million for industrial injuries benefits and £12 million for disability
allowance.
A further £8 million was claimed in winter fuel payments.
A winter fuel payment is a benefit of between £100-£300 intended to help pensioners pay their heating bills.
In order to receive winter fuel payments, claimants must have been born on or before August 5 1953, and have lived in the UK for at least one day during the week of September 17 2018.
Expats can apply for the benefit as long as they live in Switzerland or an EU country excluding Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Malta, Portugal or Spain, where the average winter temperature is higher than the warmest region of the UK.
Winter fuel payments to overseas claimants have plummeted in recent years.
In 2014/15, the figure stood at £25 million, before the then Prime Minister David Cameron introduced the ban on warmer countries.
The amount has remained at £8 million a year ever since.
Other benefit payments made abroad in 2017/18 include maternity pay, carer’s allowance, and personal independence payments. As well as benefits paid to people living abroad, the figures include a small proportion of claimants whose whereabouts are unknown.
It means a small part of the £4.05 billion went to people that the government was unable to locate, and who are likely living in the UK rather than abroad.