A Conservative MP has accused the government of breaching the law by not paying benefits to people living abroad.
Roger Gale (Con, Thanet North) opened a Westminster Hall debate on exportable benefits yesterday with the story of Simon Morgan, and how when his father died, he was not receiving the benefits he was entitled to, simply because he lived in another country.
He asked "how many more UK citizens now living within the EU or in Switzerland will have to die without receiving the benefits to which they are entitled, while this government remain in breach of the law?"
He also felt that there is an untrue impression abroad that the people we are talking about are rich, have gone to the sun, saying, "The hell with the United Kingdom," and live in "splendid retirement with big yachts and lots of drink, and that they do not need any benefits".
The government requires a claimant to have lived in the United Kingdom for 26 of the previous 52 weeks to be eligible to claim benefits - the European Court of Justice has ruled that this is not compatible with European law.
"Quite simply, the government are in breach of the law and they are disingenuously using weasel words and artifice to try to deny to sick, elderly UK citizens who have served this country, many of them in the armed forces, and who have paid their dues throughout their working lives the money owing to them."
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson for work and pensions, John Barrett, said this an "all too familiar tale of a department that is willing to use every trick in the book to avoid meeting its legal and moral obligations."
Barrett emphasised that the people being discussed have paid taxes all their lives and are not simply 'non-doms'.
He called on the minister to save "the time, expense and embarrassment of battling another court case, and to instead announce today that the benefits will be reinstated without further argument or details hidden in the small print".
Mark Harper, the shadow minister for disabled people, said that "the government have moved at a slow pace. My hon. Friend set that out well. However, the government have not only moved a slow pace but have looked for every opportunity to delay making a decision."
He criticised the government on the time it has taken for the process to be looked at and also the small amount of expenditure that a new ruling would cost.
Work and pensions minister Jonathan Shaw said that since the ECJ 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."
He also said that the government are "paying benefits, including state pensions, to many thousands of expatriates abroad".
"Most of our expatriates in the EEA live in Spain, and over the last year ministers and senior officials have visited Spain to meet them and their representatives," Shaw told MPs.
"People who cannot receive a benefit from the UK may be able to receive a benefit or service from their new state of residence.
"If they are integrated in their new community and satisfy relevant conditions they may be able to receive benefit and assistance from social services, just like people who come to the UK."
