WW2 veteran urges Starmer to end ‘brutal’ policy | Global News Avenue

A Second World War veteran has said Sir Keir Starmer has a “golden opportunity” to end what she said was a “brutal” policy to freeze the pensions of some Britons who have moved abroad.

Anne Puckridge, who is days away from turning 100, is one of more than 453,000 British pensioners living overseas who do not see their state pension increase every year.

In 2001, when she was 76, she moved to Canada to be closer to her daughter and has since received £72.50 a week.

Her state pension is now less than half the £169.50 paid to pensioners still living in the UK.

Ms Parkridge has lobbied successive governments unsuccessfully and has traveled to Westminster to raise the issue with the new government.

She will later meet Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds after her request to meet Sir Keir was rejected due to “pressure over his diary”.

Successive governments have resisted calls to increase pension freezes, citing cost as a barrier.

Ms Parkridge told the BBC the pension freeze affected every aspect of life.

“You have to be careful about entertaining,” she said.

“You have to remember that you can’t be as kind to your grandson as you want to be.

“You feel like you’ve lost all dignity, that the government has abandoned you, you know, out of sight, out of mind.”

Ms Parkridge said when she informed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that she was moving to Canada, “they never said anything about (my) pension being frozen”.

“The first time I learned about it was when my first raise was due,” she said.

“I didn’t understand. So I wrote and asked about it but I was told no… from the day you leave the UK you will receive no more and there will be no increase to your pension.”

She added: “This is so unfair and we were never warned.”

Under an arrangement called the “triple lock”, UK state pensions rise by 2.5% a year, inflation or earnings growth – whichever is the highest.

Not all pensioners who emigrated have their pensions frozen.

The UK has agreements with EU countries and the US, among others, to continue increasing pensions based on the amounts UK residents receive.

Countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India have yet to reach an agreement.

Activists say this creates an injustice.

Patrick Edwards, who lives in Australia and is part of the End Pension Freeze campaign, said they paid into their pensions like everyone else but were now “being treated differently just because of their address”.

He said: “If they lived in many other countries around the world they would get the same treatment as Britons, but it is unfair that they have been chosen to freeze their pensions.”

There is also diplomatic pressure to change policy.

It is understood that the Canadian government has raised this issue with the new government.

The Australian government has repeatedly made representations to the previous government, and the spokesperson said that it will continue to make representations at “appropriate opportunities”.

There appears to be little disagreement that it is politically difficult to justify different treatment of overseas pensioners between countries.

The Institute of Economic Affairs, a think tank that often questions the sustainability of state pensions, said: “Governments should always be trying to save money, but this does not appear to be a particularly principled approach.”

However, previous governments argued that individual pensioners were unlikely to benefit overall as many also received financial support from governments such as Canada and Australia, which would be reduced as a result.

They also pointed to the cost of fully reinstating frozen pensions as an obstacle.

In 2019, the Conservative government estimated that it would cost £600 million to fully restore pensions to the levels they would have been without the freeze.

The End Pensions Freeze campaign said it would only ask for pensions to be increased from their current levels.

Costs are expected to reach £55 million in 2025/26.

A spokesman for the DWP said: “We understand there are many reasons why people move abroad and we are providing clear information on how this will affect their financial well-being in retirement – ​​Boosting UK state pensions for recipients living overseas The policy is a long-term policy.”