Written question asked by Lord Field of Birkenhead (Independent (affiliation)) on Wednesday, 1 May 2019, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 7 May 2019. It was answered by Mel Stride (Conservative) on Monday, 13 May 2019 on behalf of the Treasury.

Child Benefit: British Nationals Abroad

Question: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of child benefit paid for children who do not reside in the UK; how many such children there were; and in which countries those children resided in the most recent financial year for which data are available.

Answer

Total Child Benefit payments in 2018-19 amounted to £11.6 billion. It is estimated that approximately £15 million was paid for children resident in another EEA country or Switzerland. The number of children these payments relate to, broken down by the country they reside in, is provided in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Estimated number of children for whom Child Benefit is received where European Community regulations apply, as at February 2019


Country	Number of children
Austria	10
Belgium	40
Bulgaria	415
Croatia	45
Cyprus	40
Czech Republic	165
Denmark	20
Estonia	35
Finland	25
France	605
Germany	165
Greece	55
Hungary	150
Iceland	5
Italy	170
Latvia	700
Liechtenstein	-
Lithuania	790
Luxembourg	10
Malta	25
Norway	40
Poland	10,975
Portugal	230
Republic of Ireland	1,945
Romania	1,000
Slovakia	575
Slovenia	-
Spain	625
Sweden	30
Switzerland	20
The Netherlands	215
Total	19,120

Footnote: Figures have been rounded to the nearest 5. Figures under 5 have been suppressed and shown as ‘-’.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 249899
Session: 2017-19
Subjects: Child benefit British nationals abroad Expenditure
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.parliament.uk

Child Benefit: British Nationals Abroad

Secondary information

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