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By Tony Watts - Editor - 02/01/2007
A new "video-blog" has underscored the totally anomalous situation where over half of UK pensioners living overseas have their State pension frozen at the level it was when they left the UK - while others have theirs updated every year.
In the blog, available to see on You Tube, two retired people have identical situations... except that one lives in Australia, and the other in the USA.
You can view the blog by clicking onto the link below, and here is the full script.
RON My name’s Ron, I live in America – they call us 'limeys'.
BOB G’day, my name’s bob, I live in Australia – they call us 'poms'.
RON I retired seven years ago and moved to America for the lifestyle.
BOB I retired seven years ago and moved to Australia to be with my grandchildren.
RON America rebelled in 1776 and left the Commonwealth, but the UK still treats me as well as if I’d stayed in the UK. My pension is index linked.
BOB Australia is a member of the old Commonwealth. Many British pensioners come here to be with their families but the UK treats them like outcasts. Their pensions are frozen.
RON When I retired in 1999 my British pension was £66.75 per week.
BOB When I retired in 1999 my British pension was £66.75 per week.
RON I now get £84.25 per week.
BOB I still get £66.75 per week. That’s what I mean when I say that my pension is frozen.
RON They claim that it would cost a lot of money to index all pensions.
BOB Not a lot of money, less than one percent of the annual pensions budget.
Britain pays fully indexed pensions to half its expat pensioners – to the USA and the Philippines, the whole of the EU, including the new members from East Europe, Turkey, Israel, and Bosnia, but, although we all paid the same contributions, it withholds the up-rating of its pensioners in the Commonwealth – all to save less than one percent of the pensions budget.
There are people here in their 90s still getting less than ten pounds a week; the same as when they retired.
Where’s the justice in that?