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| EU court rejects child benefits challenge | EU court rejects child benefits challenge |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A challenge to the UK's right to deny some EU migrants child benefit and child tax credits has been rejected by European judges. | |
| The European Court of Justice said it was lawful for the UK to withhold benefits to EU migrants with children living abroad if they did not have the right to reside in the UK. | |
| It said it was justified on the basis of "protecting" a state's finances. | |
| Benefit curbs were a key plank of David Cameron's EU renegotiations. | |
| The European Commission had argued that the British process of checking whether claimants of child benefit and child tax credit are legally resident discriminates against foreign EU workers because British citizens are not checked in that way. | |
| The court said the condition might amount to "unequal treatment" but did not go beyond what is necessary to attain the "legitimate objective" of protecting a member's state finances. | |
| "The Court rejects the Commission's principal argument, that the UK legislation imposes a condition supplementing that of habitual residence contained in the regulation," it ruled. | |
| "There is nothing to prevent the grant of social benefits to EU citizens who are not economically active being made subject to the requirement that those citizens fulfil the conditions for possessing a right to reside lawfully in the host member state." | |
| The ruling was welcomed by those campaigning to keep Britain in the European Union. | |
| "This ruling is a victory for Britain, confirming we have a fair immigration system as well as having full access to the EU single market," said Catherine Bearder, a Liberal Democrat MEP. | |
| "The right to travel and work abroad is a two-way street, around 1.2 million Brits choose to live in the EU." | |
| As part of his EU renegotiations, Mr Cameron had wanted a complete ban on migrants sending child benefit abroad but had to compromise after some eastern European states rejected that and also insisted that existing claimants should continue to receive the full payment. | |
| As a result, child benefit for the children of EU migrants living overseas will now be paid at a rate based on the cost of living in their home country - applicable immediately for new arrivals and from 2020 for the 34,000 existing claimants. |