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Social Security Benefits: Disabled

Volume 488: debated on Tuesday 3 March 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to the written ministerial statement of 24 February 2009, Official Report, column 22WS, on disability benefits, what changes his Department has made to the eligibility criteria for payment of disability benefits as a consequence of the consideration of the European Court of Justice decision of 18 October 2007. (260373)

There have been no changes to the eligibility criteria for payment of disability benefits applied domestically, as a consequence of the European Court of Justice judgment of 18 October 2007.

For people going to live or already living in another European economic area (EEA) state or Switzerland, their claims must be considered under the provisions of the sickness benefit chapter of the European Regulation 1408/71. For these customers, the ordinary residence and presence conditions, which apply domestically, are not applied. Other domestic conditions of entitlement, such as the disability conditions and the past presence test, still apply. The latter test, under domestic legislation, requires a customer to be present in Great Britain for not less than 26 out of the last 52 weeks and it applies for every day that a customer claims benefit. However, for people going to live or already living in another EEA state or Switzerland, the test has been modified: for customers taking the benefit away with them, it is last applied on the date of ‘export’ and for customers claiming from another EEA state or Switzerland it is applied only once, on the date on which entitlement to benefit can be established.