EU referendum: David Cameron still does not know how migrant benefits brake would work

David Cameron has admitted after weeks of intense negotiations to secure an EU reform deal in Brussels that he still does not know of how an “emergency brake” on migrant benefits would be implemented.

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in his first major interview to put the case for staying in the EU, the Prime Minister said the UK would be “stronger, safer and better off” if it votes to remain.

But when pressed on the details of the deal he has secured with the rest of Europe, Mr Cameron admitted “we’re going to settle all that later”.

“What we do know is you get no benefits to start with and you don’t get full benefits for four years,” Mr Cameron said. “[We will have] no more something for nothing and people have to pay in before they get out. I think that is something people said we wouldn’t achieve and it is something we have achieved.”

Mr Marr asked if a Hungarian migrant would be entitled, for example, to 90 per cent of benefits after just six months, to which the Prime Minister was only able to say that the brake “is going to be phased in over four years”.

“Now we have to settle the details and put all that in place, which we will,” he said.