MP hears of benefits fight for expats

THE difficulties faced by expats living in France who have lost their benefits after leaving the UK have been highlighted by Conservative MP Roger Gale.

The MP for Thanet writes about a meeting he had over Easter with people struggling with low incomes, poor rates of return on their savings and a struggling sterling exchange rate.

Do we look after our own? It appears that we do not. In spite of the best efforts of Members on both sides of the House of Commons to secure, for our constituents, the help that they need the government has to date sought to wriggle free of the European Court finding that the relevant benefits are exportable and should be paid to UK citizens living elsewhere within the European Union or in Switzerland.

Campaigners have been fighting to get the UK government to recognise a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling from October 18, 2007 which declared that the UK had illegally stopped paying benefits, including carers allowance, disability living allowance and attendance allowance by over-riding existing exportability rules.

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Comments

[Tina Hamilton]

See http://dla-ecj.weebly.com/pqs.html for latest response from Works and Pensions Minister Jonathan Shaw to Roger Gale's recent questions.