Britain will have to be pay “hundreds of millions of pounds” in benefits to ‘economically inactive’ disabled foreigners, if it loses a historic court battle with the European Union, Welfare minister Chris Grayling has warned.
Under the ‘right to reside’ test, Europeans coming from the other 26 EU member states can settle in the UK if they can prove that they can support themselves independently.
However the European Commission wants to force Britain to let in economically inactive Europeans, claiming that the current test discriminates against them.
Mr Grayling told MPs that his department had now commenced legal action against the European Union. He said that the action will take up to 18 months. The time and effort was worth it because it will cost Britain “hundreds of millions of pounds a year” if it loses.
He told The Daily Telegraph: “You don’t get the evidence of how many people are going to come through the fence until you have knocked down the fence. We believe that it has the potential to cost us hundreds of billions or even billions of pounds a year.”
Mr Grayling said he was worried that pension credit, sickness benefits and the disability living allowance were particularly vulnerable.
