UK NEWS
EU MIGRANTS TO GET BRITISH PENSIONS
Wednesday July 13 2011 by Alison Little
BRITAIN could be forced to pay out millions of pounds a year in pensions to foreigners who have never worked here thanks to the EU, it emerged yesterday.
The move, which will enrage millions of taxpayers, comes after the Government received a “threatening” letter from Brussels that the UK should not deny benefits to those from other EU countries.
It came to light after a pensioner who arrived in Britain as an asylum-seeker from Latvia 11 years ago and has never worked here took the Government to court for refusing to top up her tiny homeland state pension of £50 a week to a British one of around £130 a week.
Employment Minister Chris Grayling said last night he was concerned at the way the EU Commission and European Court of Justice were putting pressure on governments to pay benefits to foreign nationals who had never paid taxes in their adopted countries.
We shouldn’t be in a position where we have to pay benefits to people who come to the UK who have never worked here
Chris Grayling
The EU challenge could open the floodgates to massive new demands, said Conservative MP Anne Main, who raised the case at Westminster.
The revelation will fuel support for the Daily Express’s massively popular crusade to get Britain out of the EU.
Mr Grayling said: “We are extremely concerned that what is happening is that the European Court of Justice and lawyers in the European Commission are increasingly forming the view that freedom of movement rules should allow EU citizens much greater access to benefit systems when they move from country to country.
“When member states are having to cut back their budgets at home, this is something that is clearly going to be politically unacceptable to the citizens of those countries.
“It would mean a potential cost of hundreds of millions of pounds a year for several member states. It’s becoming an increasing matter of concern for a number of member states.”
Last month Britain led a group of 13 governments to protest to the EU Commission and call for a proper debate to establish “clear and sensible rules” on benefits.
Mr Grayling said: “We all accept that if someone comes here from another country, works and pays tax and National Insurance and loses their job, it is reasonable we should support them. We shouldn’t be in a position where we have to pay benefits to people who come to the UK who have never worked here.”
Recently the German and Dutch governments lost the argument over foreigners keeping benefit payments after retiring to their own countries.
The Department for Work and Pensions confirmed it has received a letter from the EU Commission over foreign nationals’ access to means-tested benefits in other countries.
Mrs Main said she feared Britain’s over-stretched pension resources could come under pressure after the court case of 72-year-old Galina Patmalniece, who came to Britain in 2000 after working for 40 years in Latvia. Her claim for asylum in the UK on the grounds she faced persecution at home as an ethnic Russian was refused but no effort was made to deport her and she reportedly even acquired a council flat.
In what Mrs Main branded a “staggering case of opportunistic lifestyle enhancement”, Ms Patmalniece then sought, after Latvia joined the EU in 2004, to boost her £50-a-month state pension by applying for Britain’s means-tested state pension credit, to top it up to around £130 a week. When this was refused, she took the Government to court, claiming it had breached EU law by discriminating against her on grounds of nationality.
In March Britain’s Supreme Court upheld the Government’s decision to withhold the benefit on the grounds she did not have the right to be here.
But Mrs Main told MPs: “The European Commission may decide that it wishes to challenge this and bring an infringement action against Britain in the European Court of Justice. The Commission has already written to our Government expressing unhappiness over our approach as well as over other restrictions in the access of EU nationals to benefits and I believe the letter was described as being of quite a threatening nature.”
She praised the Daily Express for raising concerns over issues such as paying British child benefit to foreign children who have never lived here if a parent is working in the UK.
She said Britain was seen as “a soft touch” in Europe for the way other EU citizens could get access to our generous benefits. “Can the British taxpayer with a massive budget deficit afford to be so generous with its benefit payments system for everyone who tries to claim it? Are we the benefit pot for the EU or for the UK, and do we through our lax approach encourage benefit tourism?” she said.
Originally Posted by Tawi2
ing! And I'm ashamed that someone bearing MY surname should even associate herself with a report ... such as the one referred to. 
where it's 
landed us since!
becuase they would tell them to 
... at least the Conservative spokeswoman has got it right in voicing her concerns ... which, for now, is the "MAIN" thing! 
