Express
January 7, 2014
![A mother and daughter set their sights on travelling to the UK from the Romanian village Jilava [JONATHAN BUCKMASTER] A mother and daughter set their sights on travelling to the UK from the Romanian village Jilava [JONATHAN BUCKMASTER]](/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/A-mother-and-daughter-set-their-sights-on-travelling-to-the-UK-from-the-Romanian-village-Jilava-1.jpg)
Tough new rules will end the scandal of more than £55million a year in handouts leaving Britain.
Making clear his outrage at the system, David Cameron warned that if he could not strike a deal with other EU countries now he would seek to secure the change in his membership renegotiations.
Benefits and tax credits claimed by European migrants for children who live in other countries cost the British taxpayer more than £1million a week, according to estimates.
Campaigners calculate that UK child benefits worth £36.6million a year go to 40,000 children living overseas including non-EU Iceland and Norway, together with £18.6million of child tax credits.
Two thirds of all child benefit sent abroad goes to Poland. The payout is £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 for others where neither parent earns more than £50,000 a year.
Tackling the issue marks another front in Mr Cameron’s attempts to curb EU immigration by reducing the attractiveness of the British welfare system.
![David Cameron also pledged to charge foreigners for admission to Hospital, which will effectively turn Doctors into Border Guards.](/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/David-Cameron-also-pledged-to-charge-foreigners-for-admission-to-AE1.jpg)
Government efforts have intensified in a bid to allay public concern over migration curbs being lifted on Bulgarians and Romanians last week.
Mr Cameron told BBC1’s Andrew Marr show that letting working immigrants claim child benefit here for families back home was not “right”.
He said: “Well, I don’t think that is right and that is something I want to change. It is a situation that I inherited. I think you can change it.”
Change would take time, because other European countries had to agree, he added.
But other European leaders also thought it wrong that someone from Poland who came here and worked hard should get our child benefit for family back at home. The Prime Minister added: “I don’t think we should be paying child benefit to family back in Poland.
“To change that you’ve either got to change it with other European countries at the moment or potentially change it through the Treaty change I’ll be putting in place before the referendum we’ll hold on Britain’s membership of the EU by the end of 2017.”