After all the fuss about the winter fuel payment and fairer treatment of armed forces personnel, this veteran’s pension demand could seriously embarrass the government.
Anne Puckridge, now aged 99, enlisted in the forces during World War Two, at the age of 17. But she moved to Canada when she was 76 and has not received a pension increase since that date, 24 years ago.
The UK has agreements with EU countries, the United States and others to increase pensions in line with the amount received by UK residents, but this is not universal and there is no such deal with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India (for example).
Campaigners say that creates an injustice and of course they are right. It means people who move to countries that don’t have such an agreement may suffer deep pension prejudice.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Ms Puckridge, for example, has received just £72.50 a week since she moved to Canada in 2001 to be near her daughter. The current state pension is £169.50.
There is also diplomatic pressure to change the policy, with the Canadian government said to have raised the issue with Keir Starmer’s administration already, and repeated representations made by the Australian government to the former Tory administration in the UK.
But the DWP’s attitude is that it will not change the policy – principally for financial reasons; it would cost around £55 million more to pay ex-pat pensioners what they deserve – they earned their pensions over their working lives, remember – and the DWP simply doesn’t want to pay up.
How does this sit with Keir Starmer’s Remembrance Day promise to veterans, in which he said he was putting an extra £3.5 million into the fund to reduce veteran homelessness?
How does it sit with his government’s (the DWP again) decision to take pensioners’ winter fuel payments away?
Very poorly.
It shows that he’s only giving lip-service to the idea of helping veterans, and that the real Labour policy for anybody over pension age is to make them freeze.
And the winters in Canada can be very, very cold.
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This veteran’s pension demand could seriously embarrass the government
After all the fuss about the winter fuel payment and fairer treatment of armed forces personnel, this veteran’s pension demand could seriously embarrass the government.
Anne Puckridge, now aged 99, enlisted in the forces during World War Two, at the age of 17. But she moved to Canada when she was 76 and has not received a pension increase since that date, 24 years ago.
The UK has agreements with EU countries, the United States and others to increase pensions in line with the amount received by UK residents, but this is not universal and there is no such deal with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India (for example).
Campaigners say that creates an injustice and of course they are right. It means people who move to countries that don’t have such an agreement may suffer deep pension prejudice.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Ms Puckridge, for example, has received just £72.50 a week since she moved to Canada in 2001 to be near her daughter. The current state pension is £169.50.
There is also diplomatic pressure to change the policy, with the Canadian government said to have raised the issue with Keir Starmer’s administration already, and repeated representations made by the Australian government to the former Tory administration in the UK.
But the DWP’s attitude is that it will not change the policy – principally for financial reasons; it would cost around £55 million more to pay ex-pat pensioners what they deserve – they earned their pensions over their working lives, remember – and the DWP simply doesn’t want to pay up.
How does this sit with Keir Starmer’s Remembrance Day promise to veterans, in which he said he was putting an extra £3.5 million into the fund to reduce veteran homelessness?
How does it sit with his government’s (the DWP again) decision to take pensioners’ winter fuel payments away?
Very poorly.
It shows that he’s only giving lip-service to the idea of helping veterans, and that the real Labour policy for anybody over pension age is to make them freeze.
And the winters in Canada can be very, very cold.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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