Lord Laird – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2016-06-08.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many British citizens are resident in each European Union member state; how many from each of those states are resident in the UK; and in each case how many are of pensionable age.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

There is no legal obligation on a British citizen living overseas to register with the British Embassy, but the UN estimated that in mid-2015 there were more than 1.2 million UK citizens living permanently elsewhere in the EU. These estimates do not include British citizens travelling or residing for part of the year in another Member State.

* Population of UK citizens permanently resident in the European Union; UN estimate, mid-2015

Office for National Statistics data show that, between January and December 2014, there were approximately 2.9 million European Union member state nationals resident in the UK.

* Population resident in the United Kingdom, excluding some residents in communal establishments, by nationality; ONS statistics August 2015 (2014 data)

There are many different ways of defining and calculating migration data so different sources will not necessarily be comparable.

No information is available on the numbers of UK and EU citizens in receipt of a UK State Pension broken down by nationality. This is because the UK State Pension is a contributory based pension, where nationality or citizenship do not form part of the eligibility criteria.

There is no data available on the number of European Union member state nationals resident in the UK who are of pensionable age.