The scandal of overseas pensions being "pilfered" by the Government

10/03/2008

In painting what he portrays as a golden future, the Pensions Reform Minister concentrates mainly on private pension schemes. In the state system he highlights the reduction in qualifying years for a Basic Pension from 44 years (men) 39 years (women) to 30 years for all.
 
He says not a word about the greatest scandal in UK state pensions where the Government confiscates the uprating entitlement of half the expatriate pensioners, many of whom paid the full 40 plus years, and all their taxes, and the older ones – the hardest hit – served in WWII. Each year these pensioner victims age, so the gap increases between international inflationary cost of living and the frozen pension they are paid. It is indirect age discrimination, which the Government told us was prohibited by the Human Rights Act.
 
Mike O’Brien had as a backbencher signed five EDMs supporting the repeal of pensions freezing. In the recent pensions debate he said
 
“Our shared aim should be to ensure that pension promises are kept and pensioners are secure in retirement...”
 
But he has now adopted a purely legalistic posture, insisting ‘the state pensions of people living abroad will be uprated where there is a legal requirement, as is the case where pensioners are living within the European Economic Area, or where there is a reciprocal agreement in place which allows for uprating’. This was despite an observation by the Ombudsman that ‘Our exchanges with government departments on some recent cases suggests to me that there is a growing obsession these days with legal liability, when they might more usefully be concerned about the reliability of the service being provided to the citizen and the quality of the administration that underpins it’.
 
So what is Mike O’Brien doing to implement his beliefs? Evidently nothing.
 
Brian Havard                    

82 year-old WWII Veteran                       

Frozen Pensioner                             
Currently deprived of 48% of his pension entitlement, ₤32,000 having been pilfered to date
Stirling 5152, Australia