There are 19,600 couples receiving benefit classed as EU migrants by the government where one of the partners is a UK national

One in nine 'EU migrant couples' on tax credits are actually half-British

One in nine families on tax credits classed by official government statistics as “EU migrant couples” actually contain one UK national, according to data obtained by the Guardian following a freedom of information request.

Of the 167,800 EU couples claiming tax credits in 2014, 19,600 were couples where one of the partners was a UK national. The proportion was even higher (16%) among those families receiving only out-of-work child tax credits.

HM Revenue & Customs defines a migrant family as one where at least one family member is a migrant. Until Thursday, HMRC had refused to disclose how many such families contained UK nationals.



HMRC’s classification for families on benefits includes data for couples and singles. Regarding the 105,000 European singles receiving child tax credits only, HMRC said it did not hold information to determine whether the non-claimant parent was a UK national.

More than 7% of couples in the UK comprise one UK national and one non-UK national, according to analysis compiled by the Office for National Statistics for the Guardian.

Revealed: tax credit data exposes limits of Cameron's 'emergency brake' Read more

On Tuesday, Cameron endorsed an EU proposal to introduce an emergency brake that would allow the UK to restrict the payment of tax credits and other in-work benefits to EU immigrants in the first four years after their arrival.

Because of the definition used by the government, it remains unclear how many British nationals married to Europeans could be hit by a policy targeted at “migrant families”.

No 10 said this was not the intent. “Our policy is to reduce the pull factor of our welfare system, not to affect British nationals,” a spokesman said.



Separate figures released on Thursday by HMRC – six months after they were first requested by the Guardian – show that 84,000 EU migrant families claimed tax credits in 2013-14 and had been issued a Nino (national insurance number) in the previous four years.