More than 7% of all couples in the UK comprise one UK national and one non-UK national, according to analysis compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the Guardian.
But when any such couples claim tax credits, they could be considered migrant families by the British government.
HMRC, which collects and supplies the government with data on tax credits, defines non-UK families as ones “where at least one adult is a migrant in the family”.
There are more than 1.1 million couples in the UK where one partner is a British national and the other a foreign national.
Families are classed as “non-UK” if the sole adult in a single claim or either adult in a joint couples’ claim was not a UK national when they were given a national insurance number.
HMRC has confirmed that because of this definition, couples where one partner is a British national could be considered a migrant family.
The classification used by HMRC means, for example, that a family with children where one parent is a British national could be considered as not being from the UK in official figures used by the government to formulate policy.
This classification:
- Inflates the number of migrants claiming tax credits, while downplaying the figures for UK nationals on tax credits.
- Means that any policy aimed to restrict migrants’ access to tax credits would also hit UK nationals.
- Implies that the government has no clear idea of the number of EU nationals that are claiming tax credits in Britain and have resided in the UK for fewer than four years (or the potential savings of a policy aimed at restricting the tax credits of this group) – key aspects of the flagship idea of David Cameron’s plan to renegotiate Britain’s status in the EU ahead of an in/out referendum.
HMRC data claims that – based on its definition – there were 1.7 million UK couples and 431,500 “non-UK” couples claiming tax credits in 2014.
But HMRC has refused to say how many “non-UK couples” include families where one partner is a British national.
The other 2.6 million families in receipt of tax credits last year were classified as single claimants, of whom 2.2 million are UK nationals.
However, only 401,700 of all singles claiming tax credits in 2014 have no children and received working tax credit (WTC) only.
HMRC has refused to say if it knows the number of cases where non-UK singles are claiming child tax credit and the other parent is a British national.
The vast majority of tax credit expenditure relates to families with children.
HMRC estimates that annual entitlements of families containing a non-UK national were £5.2bn in 2013-14 (17.4% of the total £29.7bn spend for that period). Of the £5.2bn, £1.2bn was paid to out-of-work families on child tax credits, £3.8bn to in-work families with children, and £200m to in-work claimants without children.
According to the same HMRC data there were 738,900 non-UK families (singles and couples) in receipt of tax credits (15.9% of the total caseload) as of March 2014.
Of 317,800 EU families in receipt of tax credits, about 150,000 are classified as singles. Of these, more than two-thirds have children.
About one in two “EU families” claiming tax credits are classified as couples.
