Benefits: EU Nationals

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am being taken well off my brief which is concerned with benefits, so I will not comment on that question either.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, the issue of reciprocity was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord German. Have the Government ever calculated the cost of reciprocity in terms of how much it costs the United Kingdom to pay benefits to EU nationals and what our 900,000 people get back?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, amazingly, we do not have those data, but that is clearly not the present Government’s problem as we are looking to get those data. Our concern is that, if we let in benefit tourists in the way the Commission is looking for us to do, the costs of doing that could be up to £2.5 billion a year. Noble Lords will be absolutely aware that we have many better ways of spending that money on people who are in this country and who have been making a contribution to this country.