Exportable Benefits

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs. Humble. As other hon. Members have noted, you take a personal interest in matters relating to the Department for Work and Pensions. I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), who has been pursuing this issue for a long time. He and I have had meetings and he acts in his own doughty way but always in a manner of reasonableness, as the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) said. The hon. Member for North Thanet expresses his views in a forthright way, and I appreciate the manner in which he has presented his case, not only during this debate but during our meetings in the Department. The starting point is the judgment by the European Court of Justice in October 2007, and I want to explain what that meant. In case C-299/05, the Court decided that certain benefits belonging to Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom should not be classified as special non-contributory benefits under European law, but should instead be classified as sickness benefits. That change in classification for the UK mainly affected disability benefits—the disability living allowance care component, attendance allowance and carer's allowance, which have been referred to. The relevant legislation is EC regulation 1408/71, which co-ordinates social security systems in the European Economic Area, and provides rights for workers and people who used to work and, in certain circumstances, their family members. Not all people who are eligible to receive benefits in the UK can export them if they leave the country. For instance, someone who resides in the UK can claim DLA without having a national insurance contribution record. When they leave the country, however, the UK is no longer responsible for paying them and they are not covered by the regulation. Each member state is free to decide who is entitled to be insured under its legislation, which benefits are to be granted and under what conditions, and how those benefits are calculated. Any such decisions are, of course, subject to challenge from individuals or the European Commission. When people are covered by the regulation and wish to export their benefit, they are no longer required to meet normal residence and presence conditions although they are still required to meet other conditions of entitlement under domestic legislation. In the UK, that includes a past presence test, whereby an individual is required to have been present in the UK for 26 of the previous 52 weeks, on each day of the award of benefit. For people wishing to export their benefit we have modified that condition so that it is applied only on a single date, on which other conditions of entitlement can be established. The unmodified test is not new—it has always been part of the conditions of entitlement that all customers are required to meet. Unlike the state pension, for example, disability benefits are not paid because relevant national insurance contributions have been made. They are not means-tested and are paid out of general UK taxation. The purpose of the past presence test is to establish a connection with the UK that is appropriate and proportionate. The hon. Member for North Thanet said that we have failed to comply with the Court's decision. However, since the judgment, more than 1,700 people who have left the UK for another EEA state have been able to export their benefit. They are currently being paid while resident abroad, as long as they meet the eligibility criteria for payment. The hon. Gentleman represents a campaign group of people who previously received benefits, but who moved abroad before the date of the judgment and consequently lost them. As noted by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), who is no longer in the Chamber, when those people moved abroad they would have known that their benefits would cease, and would presumably have taken that into account when making their decision to leave the UK. Automatically to reinstate benefits to that group of people could be contrary to both domestic and European law. Apart from ensuring that customers satisfy all relevant domestic requirements, including whether they need help in looking after themselves or caring for others, they also need to satisfy European law on sickness benefits.