£24m overseas child benefit bill

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They include 37,941 children who live in Poland, from which there has been a large influx of workers since the country joined the European Union in 2004.

Details of how much the payments are costing the British taxpayer have not been released, but one estimate put the bill at more than £24 million.

In total 50,586 children outside the UK are the designated beneficiaries of the entitlements for people working in Britain, Treasury minister Stephen Timms revealed to the Commons.

Due to EU rules, however, not all of the payments are made at the full UK rate of £20 a week for the first child and £13.20 for others.

After Poland, the next biggest concentration was in Slovakia, where there are 2,573 children named for benefits claims. Then it was France, with 2,346.

The figure for Poland has risen by about a fifth from 31,400 in the past 18 months.

Tory Treasury spokesman Philip Hammond said: "With Britain facing a debt crisis and the Government's child poverty strategy in tatters, it beggars belief that Gordon Brown is continuing to send millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to children who don't even live in this country.

"It's yet more evidence that he is completely out of touch with the concerns of ordinary families struggling to make ends meet in these difficult times."