Mrs_to_Mummy

I am a singaporean and married to a british expat currently working in singapore. I am pregnant at the moment. My husband is planning for us to have our baby born in uk. What are the benefits for having children in uk?

Mummy in the foothills

I'm in US here it costs an arm and a leg, in UK it's all covered.
Plus they use a lot of midwives (I'd have loved that)
they also do home visits after care once you are home.
I'm sure theres loads more.

Whats the care like in Singapore? Do you need private insurance to cover the birth.

Mrs_to_Mummy

The funny thing about singapore is the only benefit you will get is only after you give birth . They called it the baby bonus. The govt will match dollar to dollar for every amount you save for your newborn. Maximum savings is 6k which half of it is your own savings. They will increase the amount for every thrid and fourth child. Plus they will reimburse portion of your hospital bill during labour. And four months paid leave for working mums. The thing is my husband is not working in uk and our marriage is not registered in uk.

3 go mad in Adelaide

Can I just clarify? Are you moving to the UK? You said your husband wouldn't be working there, if so, I don't quite understand why you are going over Is it just to have the baby?

Mrs_to_Mummy

Unless if he receive an immediate job offer from uk, we wont be moving to uk till few years later. i Just want to know what are the possible benefits available.

GinaUK

Although your husband is British and you are married to him, you can't just come into the UK with him. If you don't have a UK (or other EU) passport you need a spouse visa.

And if your husband hasn't got a job in the UK lined up, getting you a spouse visa may be difficult (he has to prove that he can financially support himself and you and the baby when it's born without recourse to public funds).

It doesn't matter that the marriage isn't registered in the UK.

But, like I said, in order for you to get a spouse visa to get into the UK, you and your husband need to meet a number of criteria. All info is here:
http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/en/howtoap...swivespartners

A good summary of all the criteria and what documentation you need to meet the criteria is here:
http://www.lawfirmuk.net/english/spouse.htm

Gina

Celtic Princess

I don't think anyone can give you an easy answer to this question are there are too many variables such as your residency status, how long either of you has contributed, whether working or not and the nature of the benefit. I think this is one of the most complicated areas of the benefits systems especially as many of the benefits are 'in kind' ie not monetry. Here is a list of possible benefits, off the top of my head, I'm sure there are others, but I would imagine that you eligability for many, if not all, of them is fairly limited.

- Statutory maternity pay
- maternity leave
- paternity leave
- free health care
- free maternal dental care
- income support
- working families tax credit
- housing benefit
- council tax benefit
- free baby milk
- free school dinners
- child benefit
- hospital transport costs
- free nursery place

And I'm sure a whole lot more.

(Now that I think about it, it makes me realise just how lucky I was. To be British, living in Britain when my daughter was born. We so take it all for granted.)

quoll

You may want to check that you would be entitled to free medical care in UK - there are some regulations that you have to be ordinarily resident in UK, I think, before you can access the NHS. They were certainly talking about cracking down on health tourists and I thought they had put something into place.

Giantaxe

I hope your husband is also planning to pay for this too. Unlerss, of course, you wish to obtain NHS services that you almost certainly are not eligible for.

JAJ

Was your husband born in the U.K.?

What's the plan for travelling to the U.K. months ahead of the birth? (you can't fly just before baby is due).

Most benefits in the U.K. would require you to be resident there anyway, not just visiting.

And do you want your child to be a Singapore citizen - or not?