Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answers of the 24 June 2015 to Questions 4118 and 4121 and the statement of the Minister for Europe of 10 November 2015, Official Report, column 239, in which he stated that 'roughly like 40 per cent of the people from elsewhere in the EU who live in the UK are in receipt of benefits or tax credits of some sort,' how this figure was calculated; how many EU citizens have been in the UK for less than four years; and of those people how many have made individual claims for tax credits.

Details on how the proportion of EEA nationals who were in receipt of benefits or tax credits was calculated is detailed in the DWP ad hoc statistical publication “UK benefit and tax credit claims by recently arrived EEA migrants”. This can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-benefit-and-tax-credit-claims-by-recently-arrived-eea-migrants

It was not possible to provide a more detailed breakdown within this ad hoc statistical publication on the claims made by individuals for different benefits or tax credits.