Government's age discrimination targets pensioners

09/01/2008

DWP practises discrimination in denying annual pensions uprating to half a million UK pensioners in the major Commonwealth countries, freezing their pensions at the amount which applied when first they qualified or emigrated as existing pensioners. This means that, with each passing year, the difference increases inexorably between the ever rising cost of living and the amount those pensioners receive, until ninety year-olds find that 90% has been confiscated of the entitlement they had purchased by their and their employers’ contributions to the National Insurance Fund, just like every other pensioner including the other half of the expatriates who receive fully uprated pensions. 

Imposing an ever increasing penalty on pensioners as they age is indirect age discrimination, yet in a ‘duty statement’ for a vacant position, DWP tongue-in-cheek states:

“We will not tolerate discrimination on any of the following: gender, marital status, sexual orientation, race, colour, nationality, religion, age, disability, HIV positivity, working pattern, caring responsibilities, trade union activity, or political beliefs – or any other grounds.”
 
This scandalous policy is unique to Britain. Every comparable peer country exercises pensions parity at home and abroad.
 
If you plan to retire to a Commonwealth country (and save the Treasury a huge amount especially in health costs), ask your MP when he is going to demand an end to this victimisation of the aged.
 
Brian Havard                       
81 year-old WWII Veteran                       
Stirling, Australia