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Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered pensions for people living overseas.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. For over 70 years, successive Governments have upheld the frozen pension policy. The result on those impacted has been not only a severe financial toll, but a heavy emotional burden. These individuals built their lives and careers in the United Kingdom, contributed their share through national insurance, and then, often later in life, moved abroad, in many cases to join family members. In doing so, they found themselves victims of an outdated policy. Most of them first became aware of the policy only after noticing that their state pension was not increasing in line with policies such as the triple lock, proudly founded by the Conservatives.
Let me be clear about what the frozen pension policy entails: British citizens who retire in certain countries—for example, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of the Commonwealth, in fact—are denied the annual inflationary increases to their state pension. A person retiring to the USA sees their pension uprated yearly, but if they cross the border into Canada, those increases stop. That can result in elderly pensioners receiving as little as £60 a week on average, despite the current basic state pension being £176.45 a week. As many as four in 10 frozen pensioners report struggling to afford most necessities such as food or medicine.
It may be tempting to dismiss this as a problem “over there”, but British overseas pensioners are citizens who have lived, worked and grown up here. They remain citizens here; they are constituents, and, with the changes to overseas voting rules in 2024, many are now registered to vote in United Kingdom elections again. That means there are up to half a million voices who feel forgotten, neglected and increasingly betrayed by successive Governments.
Geography should not be an excuse for a lack of morality. British overseas pensioners are making their voices heard; over 75% want their representative to commit to ending frozen pensions. In 2016, at an all-party roundtable event, the now Deputy Prime Minister called for a change on frozen pensions and a commitment to finding a solution. I am glad she did so then; I am concerned that the Government are not doing so now. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether that is still the position of the Deputy Prime Minister, and indeed, the Government.
Since I first raised the issue in the House of Commons last year, I have read and heard many compelling stories—for example, that of Anne Puckridge. Now 100 years old, Anne remains an inspiration to all of us, having served in the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force during world war two—I repeat: the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force—serving six months in each branch. It is fair to state that she has paid her dues to this country. After the war, she lived and worked for the vast majority of her life in the United Kingdom, until she moved to Canada in 2001. She is one of around 60,000 veterans affected by the policy.
The emotional impact of the policy cannot be overstated. Many of those affected say that they were never informed that their pension would be frozen when they moved. Anne was not told, and the campaign reports that 86% of pensioners affected had no idea the policy even existed before they were impacted. That is too little, too late.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member on this timely debate. He just referred to a 100-year-old. Does he agree that the frozen pension issue is not just about the fact that people are seeing a relatively small pension compared with the one they would have had if they were still a UK resident? Because of the policy, in their final years of existence on this earth, they will have a paltry pension to pass away on.
Gregory Stafford
I entirely agree with the hon. Member, and I will come on to some of that later. He is absolutely right that there is not just a severe financial impact, but a moral impact. Constituents of ours, who have paid their dues—and, in Anne’s case, more than paid their dues given what they have done for this country—will end their days on pretty much nothing when inflation is taken into account.
Last December, I challenged the Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s questions on his decision not to meet Anne during her visit to the UK—a visit that required an 8,500 mile round trip, which is no mean feat at the age of 99. She was not offered a meeting with the Prime Minister.
Anne’s story is sadly emblematic of a much wider injustice that continues to be perpetrated on our elderly. Only this year, we saw continued poor treatment through policies such as the removal of the winter fuel payment and the betrayal of the WASPI women, both causes that were vociferously supported by the Labour party in opposition. Labour is happy to freeze pensioners and happy to freeze their pensions.
The Prime Minister’s refusal to meet Anne is symbolic of a Government who are, I regret to say, unwilling to listen to some of the most elderly and vulnerable among us. That brings me to the crux of today’s debate: the Government do not seem willing to engage in any meaningful way with the overseas electorate affected by the policy. I remind hon. Members that 158 parliamentarians from across the UK and Canada wrote to the Government last October calling for an end to the policy, and more than 140,000 people signed Anne’s petition to meet the Prime Minister in December.
The most concerning aspect of the Government’s current line of response is the estimated cost of ending the policy altogether. Based on calculations made annually, the Government quote the figure of £950 million a year to uprate and backdate all pensions, but that is not the ask. The End Frozen Pensions campaign has made it abundantly clear that it is not calling for retrospective compensation. It is asking simply to receive the same annual increases going forward that are awarded to pensioners living here, and in the USA, France and a host of other countries.
The cost of such a policy change is a mere £55 million a year—a fraction of the overall pensions budget. Will the Minister agree to meet the End Frozen Pensions campaign to accurately assess the cost of what is being requested by pensioners? Will he work with us, in good faith, to find a solution that reflects the modest and realistic nature of the appeal?
Beyond the severe individual hardships, there are important and growing geopolitical consequences to the point where the policy is now creating serious diplomatic tensions with some of our closest allies, as pensions are frozen in 50 out of the 56 Commonwealth nations. How can we speak proudly of our Commonwealth partnerships while refusing full pensions to veterans in the Falkland Islands, British-born nurses in Barbados or former civil servants in Canada? Those are countries with deep and historical ties to the UK, yet they are forced to subsidise our negligence.
Australia and Canada have made their frustrations clear. Canada has been formally requesting a resolution to the issue for more than 40 years. In October, 103 Canadian parliamentarians wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to address the issue. The Canadian and Australian Governments already provide full state pension increases to their citizens living in the UK. Meanwhile, they are left picking up the tab for British citizens residing in their countries.
With Canada and Australia having just held national elections, and with new trade discussions likely on the horizon, what assessment has the Minister made of the policy’s impact on our future ability to trade and meaningfully engage with those countries? Will he look at how reciprocal barriers to the policy may be overcome?
As I draw to a close, let me return to the heart of the matter. The policy causes financial hardship for a large number of affected elderly people. It also causes indignity and isolation; their repeated dismissal by the Government is leading to their political disenfranchisement. Putting an end to this blatant injustice is not only achievable but affordable—£55 million a year is not beyond our means. What is ultimately lacking is not money, but political will.
I have one practical ask of the Minister: will he meet campaigners to more fully understand their demands? If not to resolve the issue outright, will he at least commit to acknowledge the request for uprating on a going-forward basis only? Will he agree to work with me and campaigners to explore how, at a minimum, awareness of the policy might be improved, given the vast majority of impacted pensioners still report having no knowledge of the policy’s existence prior to moving overseas? All that those pensioners are asking for is a level playing field, so that those who have contributed can live out their retirement with dignity and security.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on securing this important debate on an issue that is often overlooked, as I think we would all agree. It is fair to say that successive Governments have ignored this issue for decades and, understandably, many UK citizens are unaware of what would happen to their state pension if they were to relocate to one of the countries affected by this regressive arrangement.
It seems completely arbitrary that someone could emigrate to America and continue to receive an annual uprating in their state pension, but not if they went to Canada. We have heard that the blight of frozen pensions affects nearly half a million British citizens living overseas, despite the fact that they paid national insurance contributions for much of their working lives.
The impact of this arrangement is absolutely shocking. We have already heard that four in 10 frozen pensioners report that they struggle to afford items such as food and fuel. In my view, our state pension system is already insufficient to meet the needs of millions of existing and future pensioners, but let us imagine how inadequate it would be if the pension failed to rise at least in line with inflation or earnings for more than 20 years of someone’s retirement.
Most pensioners in this position were never informed that their state pension would be frozen in this way. The scandal therefore has a number of parallels with those behind other campaigns, such as that affecting women born in the 1950s, who argue that they saw their state pension age increase without due notice.
Such measures only end up hurting the most vulnerable in our society. Taken alongside recent decisions to means-test the winter fuel allowance, which was mentioned earlier; the refusal to pay compensation to the WASPI women; and the proposed cuts to disability benefits, it could appear that the Government are trying to balance the country’s books on the back of some of the poorest members of our society.
Although there will always be a cost to Government decisions, I ask the Minister to consider that beginning to uprate the frozen pensions at a future date would cost only around £55 million a year. Most commentators would understand that that is not beyond the realms of possibility. It would be a significant step not only in showing that the Government are on the side of older people who have made a contribution to our country, but in unravelling a long-standing anomaly that the public simply cannot understand.
Finally, the Government should also consider that with changes to the overseas voting rules, as was mentioned earlier, many of the UK pensioners affected by the frozen pension scandal are now in fact registered voters in the UK.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
My West Dunbartonshire constituent, Fraser, has now retired and lives in Australia. He is one of the half a million British citizens and voters now affected by this 70-year outdated and harsh practice. He is from my home town of Clydebank. He worked in the ordnance factory in Bishopton for decades, and then in the Govan shipyards. He paid his national insurance contributions for many years, but his pension is frozen. He tells me that every year it is getting harder and harder for him to make ends meet.
Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a scandalous injustice? We are not seeking a full backdating, but for the Government to introduce some form of yearly indexing to answer that injustice.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that now is the time to grasp an issue that successive Governments of all shades have failed to grasp. This is the Government’s chance to do something positive for older people by ending the injustice once and for all, and I urge them to do so.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for introducing this debate and for putting his case so well on a subject that has been brought to the House’s attention on numerous occasions, both in Westminster Hall and in the main Chamber. There are several people in the Public Gallery today who have been involved in the campaign; we thank them for all their correspondence to ensure that we can follow the campaign on behalf of so many British people. Just last week, I was working on some cases in my office. These issues occur regularly, as the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) said.
As we are all aware, the Government’s policy on freezing state pensions for British pensioners living overseas affects some half a million pensioners and is fundamentally unfair. I believe that it is morally unfair, because it penalises pensioners who have earned their state pension through decades of national insurance contributions. They have done the same as everybody else and have paid national insurance contributions and tax. They made a contribution to the society that they lived in. Today they are being penalised, and it is grossly unfair.
People who have worked for their entire life in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are being denied the annual pension increases granted to UK residents simply because they chose to retire abroad, often to be closer to family. As they get older, they want to support their family, but their family also want to support them, so there is a physical necessity. People want to make the most of their savings elsewhere, as anyone is entitled to do. For example, a pensioner in Australia or Canada, where pensions are frozen, might receive some £7,000 annually, while UK-based pensioners get more than £11,000 annually as a result of triple-lock upgrading.
There is a real differential and a real problem to be addressed. Over time, inflation diminishes the value of frozen pensions, pushing some expat pensioners into poverty. That has an impact not just on them, but on the countries in which they now live. In extreme cases, pensioners have reported surviving on pensions worth less than £20 a week in real terms. Nobody could survive on that—it is impossible. We ask the Minister to give us some support and give us something to tell our constituents and their families.
The freeze is fundamentally unjust. It penalises pensioners who have earned their state pension through decades of national insurance contributions. I think of Anne Puckridge, a 100-year-old world war two veteran who served in all three branches of our armed forces decoding messages during the war. After working in the UK until the age of 76, way beyond her pension years, and paying all her taxes and national insurance, she moved to Canada in 2001 to be near her daughter. Her daughter wanted her to be there, and she wanted to support her daughter. Her pension was frozen at £72.50 per week, rather than the £169.50 she would receive in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which has resulted in an estimated loss of £60,000 over 23 years.
When Mrs Puckridge notified the Department for Work and Pensions of her move, she was not informed that her pension would be frozen. At no stage was it intimated to her, “Look, if you go there, this is going to happen.” Because of that false pretence—because it did not disclose the full facts of the case—I believe that the DWP stands accused in the moral court of law for how it treated this lady. She only discovered the situation when her first expected increase did not arrive. She stated:
“It’s the injustice of it that is so unfair, the fact that we were never warned.”
They were never told. That is disgraceful.
As other hon. Members have said, the widespread lack of transparency is reminiscent of the lack of transparency with WASPI women. The all-party parliamentary group on frozen British pensions has reported that nearly 90% of all affected pensioners were unaware of the policy before moving. Given that those half a million British pensioners have paid into the national insurance system throughout their working life, does the Minister consider it fair to deny them the annual pension increases that residents of the United Kingdom receive?
An especially important factor is that the affected pensioners are not adding to the pressures on public services such as the NHS on their retirement. When people get to 79 or 80, their impact on the national health service will be greater. They may have complex needs. Their age is agin them. Very clearly, their dependence on the NHS at that stage is much greater. If we take that out of the equation and they go to Canada, America or Australia, there is a real saving to the NHS. There will be no prescriptions either. I speak as someone who takes 14 tablets a day just to stay alive; most of them have to do with diabetes, but that is by the way. If someone is saving the NHS all that money, is only right that that be considered in the financial equation.
The findings in the 2020 inquiry report of the APPG on frozen British pensions indicate that the policy affects war veterans and even some members of the Windrush generation, who have returned to their country of birth but now face economic hardship as a result of this policy. The Windrush generation caught the imagination of this great nation. I became aware of their case through being an MP, and it is a really justifiable one. They are now being penalised if they decide to go back home to be close to their families, having come here, worked all their days and paid their national insurance contributions and taxes.
As the current policy is leaving expat British pensioners having to return to the UK, I ask again whether the Minister will conduct a cost-benefit analysis to assess whether ending the freeze might reduce long-term costs by preventing the need to repatriate. The cost factor is of such magnitude that a review might persuade the Government to ensure that expatriates get their pension.
The freeze is also morally indefensible. It punishes a perfectly valid legal choice to live abroad, and it ignores the contributions that these pensioners made to the economy and to our society. Many moved abroad with a reasonable expectation that their pension, a right earned through years of work, would retain its value. The arbitrary distinction between countries with and without an operating agreement lacks logics and smacks of red tape and bureaucracy gone mad: pensions increase in the US but not in Canada or Australia, for example. We always used to blame the EU for bureaucracy. We might blame it again, of course; later today I presume that we will have a statement in the Chamber on the UK-EU deal, so we will have a chance to go over the past once again.
I support the APPG’s recommendations. It is time to end the frozen pension policy and provide full uprated pensions to British expat pensioners as soon as possible. I believe that that stance is supported by evidence from the Governments of Australia and Canada, with which we have a good working relationship. Has the Minister had the opportunity to talk to the relevant Ministers in those Governments? It is not that they are telling the UK what to do, but I understand that they have suggested that we may need reform. If the Minister has had the opportunity to talk to them, what has come out of those talks?
It is unjust to penalise pensioners for living abroad when they have paid into the system like everyone else. By uprating pensioners globally, the UK would honour its moral and economic obligations and ensure that members of the post-war generation that rebuilt Britain can retire with the security that they deserve, wherever they choose to live. Today is an opportunity to make that request and that plea again, and to ask our new Minister to look at the issue in a positive way and consider all the cost factors. There are many things in the pot that should be looked at once again.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Eleven years ago, my colleague Ian Blackford stood in pretty much this spot talking about exactly the same thing. Exactly the same arguments that were made during that debate could be made today. Things have not moved on. We are not in a better position. At that time, we were talking about 550,000 frozen pensions; now we are down to 500,000. People are dying before they receive their entitlements.
Pensions are a social contract. We pay our national insurance and our taxes into the system in the expectation and with the understanding that we will get something out of it when we become pensioners. This is not party political: it applies to all Governments over the last 70 years. No UK Government have been willing to fulfil the contract with pensioners who choose to live in a certain country. I do not think that that is fair. When we begin to pay taxes, we are not told that our pension entitlement will vary if we choose to live in one of these countries.
That they are overwhelmingly Commonwealth countries seems even more bizarre. We have a special relationship with the Commonwealth: for example, 12% of Canadians claim Scottish heritage and 14% claim English heritage. Scotland is a nation of emigrants as well as a nation of immigrants—not an island of strangers. It is a brilliant thing that we Scots are found all over the world. In a significant number of places, people with Aberdeen accents can be found speaking the Doric.
People should be allowed to go and live with their family in the expectation that the Government will continue to support them in older age, not pull the rug out from under them. They have paid into the system just the same as the people who choose to live here. In fact, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) says, they are taking less out of the system than those who continue to live here. The cost-benefit analysis shows that people overseas are not using the NHS here on a regular basis. They are not getting the free prescriptions in Scotland. They are not getting prescriptions down here. They are not getting a free TV licence—well, nobody is getting a free TV licence. They are not getting the benefits that an older pensioner living in the UK would expect. They are not taking those things out of the system, yet the UK is still unwilling to uprate their pensions. They are going to live with their families, in a significant number of cases, and not getting their entitlements.
The Deputy Prime Minister previously said:
“The situation is unfair, illogical and doesn’t make sense.”
It has never been enough of a priority for any Government to sort out, but given the current Government’s electoral standing with some older people on the basis of WASPI and the winter fuel payment, it might be an idea to solve the situation now and gain back some of that capital.
A lady who lives in Canada is coming to visit Scotland in June and is going to pop into my office while she is here. She is from Aberdeen. She went to St Margaret’s school and her husband went to the school I went to; there is an annual music prize awarded in his honour. At the end of her email asking to come and see me, Maureen added something about frozen pensions:
“I believe the Prime Minister is not happy about us Canadians kicking up a fuss. We have been doing it for at least 15 years, but no one listens.”
That is the biggest injustice of all: the fact that we are not listening.
I am pleased that the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) has secured this debate. Like many of us, he is standing on the shoulders of giants: the issue has been brought up for years and years, but we have never managed to make enough of an impact on the Government to get the change to happen and have them recognise that this is important. As several Members have said, now that we have had a change in the electoral rights of people overseas so that they are able to vote for longer, perhaps the Government will feel more under pressure. But it should not have taken that. It should have been understood that this was a moral decision. It does not matter where someone chooses to live out their twilight years; they should have the same entitlements as others who have paid the same amount over the years.
The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) spoke about his constituent from Clydebank who worked in Govan. The country has been built—these islands have been built—on the hard work of these people throughout our manufacturing history. Anne Puckridge, who is an unbelievable human being, was in the RAF and made a huge input to our prosperity and the safety and security of these islands. We are paying these people back by saying, “Nah, you’ve paid the same as everybody else, but you’ve chosen to live in a different postcode, so we’re not paying it.” This is an injustice that needs fixed.
I know that I have managed to speak for seven minutes, but actually it is pretty difficult to stretch this out. All there is to say is, “This needs sorted. Please could you sort it?” That is the passionate case that we are all making on behalf of our constituents and those who might choose to move to other countries in future. We do not want them to have to ask, “Do I want to live in Canada where my daughter lives? Do I want to live somewhere else, or do I have to stay here because I cannot get my pension uprated?”
I am not asking for a full commitment on any of this. I am not asking for all the backdated stuff. I am not asking for a commitment for every single individual. I understand that some international agreements may have to be made to make some of this happen. But I want the Government to say, “We recognise that this is a priority for people and that there is an unfairness in the system. We will look at doing what we can to ensure that people, no matter where they choose to live, get the pensions that they are entitled to.”
Peter Dowd (in the Chair)
I remind Members that we are not supposed to use the second person. Please address things through me and not directly to other Members.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on raising an issue that, quite simply, is a matter of national shame. I had the privilege of chairing the all-party parliamentary group on frozen British pensions for more years than I care to remember, and in that task I had the staunch support of Sir Peter Bottomley, Lord German and many others. We all regarded this as a non-partisan issue. It was quite simply a cross-party matter that had to be resolved.
In spite of the effort that we put into it over many years, successive Governments of all political persuasions have sheltered behind the myth that we uprate pensions only in countries with which we have a reciprocal arrangement. Historically, we have had a reciprocal arrangement with the United States but not with Canada. On one side of the Niagara Falls, people get their pension uprated; a couple of hundred yards across the river, people do not.
That is arrant nonsense, and it is unjust for all the reasons we have heard this morning. These are British citizens who paid their dues over their whole working lives before emigrating. They are as entitled to the full state pension as any other British citizen. John Markham, of blessed memory, led the campaign in Canada for many years. The irony is that, every time he came back for two weeks to make the case to whoever was in power, he would claim his two weeks’ uprated pension, because the moment he set foot on British soil, he was allowed to have it. Where is the sense in that?
The point has been made that pensioners in the majority of Commonwealth countries do not receive uprated pensions, but pensioners in the European Union do, because we reached a reciprocal arrangement when we left the European Union. I am delighted that expat UK citizens living throughout the European Union are getting their pension uprated. That is absolutely right—they have paid their way—but I fail to see why people living in what we proudly used to call the British Commonwealth do not get their money.
What about those living in Australia? What about people like Norma Maloney in South Africa or the greatly revered Anne Puckridge, who I have been privileged to meet on many occasions, in Canada? Why do they not get their money? The answer is quite simple: it comes down to the Treasury solicitors, who have historically been absolutely terrified that, if we give an inch, somebody will try to bring a class action to get a backdated pension, and of course those sums would be astronomical.
When Sir Oliver Letwin was in the Cabinet Office, he made the eminently workable proposal that we should uprate whatever pension the recipient was getting at the time of the uprating. Anne Puckridge would get the triple-locked increase on her fairly pitiful pension, not on anything retrospective. That is not what the expats ought to be receiving or what they are entitled to, morally, but it would work, because over time—by attrition, as people fall off the perch—we would reach the parity we ought to have today.
I was as critical of the previous Government as I am of the current one. They are sheltering behind a Treasury lawyers’ position that is wholly untenable and, I believe, patently dishonest. These elderly people—and I speak as an elderly person—have paid their way. They are entitled to their money. They should have it, and the Government must do something about it now.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, Mr Dowd. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for securing this important debate.
Nearly half a million UK pensioners living overseas are being penalised, not because they did not pay into the system but because of where they now live. They are our citizens—our veterans, carers, former teachers and nurses. They worked all their lives, paid into the national insurance system and are now denied the annual uprating of their state pension. Their pensions have been frozen, sometimes for decades, based purely on whether the UK happens to have a reciprocal agreement with their country of residence. As we have heard, it cannot be fair that a pensioner in the US sees their pension rise each year, while a pensioner in Australia does not.
The Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for an end to that injustice. We have already heard about Lord German’s sterling work, and I would like to highlight the policy research by Liberal Democrats Overseas, which has proposed a fair and affordable five-year plan to restore full uprating, starting with those who have lost out the most. Campaigners acknowledge the cost of their demands, and are even willing to accept partial uprating as a first step. However, as we have heard, previous Governments have refused to act and, worse, have turned down repeated offers from countries such as Australia and Canada to negotiate new agreements. This Government can take a fairer approach.
It is interesting that the Welsh Affairs Committee is looking into how we can engage the Welsh diaspora in promoting brand Wales overseas. A new settlement for British pensioners living overseas strikes me as a good way to engage with the British diaspora, particularly as we strike new agreements with countries all over the world. We Liberal Democrats call on the Government to stop hiding behind outdated excuses and to start treating all UK pensioners with fairness and dignity.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
People who receive a pension income have worked throughout their careers for that money, and they deserve to be able to access it fairly and with the proper information, lest we see a repeat of the WASPI scandal. Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that, for people receiving a UK pension, uprating should not be a lottery of land borders, and that His Majesty’s Government should redouble their efforts to find reciprocal arrangements with countries currently without an agreement with the UK?
David Chadwick
David Lloyd George created the social contract on which our pension scheme still runs, and I am sure he would be proud to hear my hon. Friend calling for that social contract to be adhered to.
Several hon. Members have drawn attention to the fact that we now have many constituents living abroad who have the right to vote. To better represent their needs and make more progress, the Government might wish to consider the idea of overseas constituencies. That would give one or two hon. Members the opportunity to represent the needs of people living abroad who certainly warrant their full pensions.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for securing this debate.
Nearly 13 million UK citizens receive the state pension, and around 1.2 million of them live outside the UK. Most of those people are entitled to state pension increases because they live in the European economic area or in the 15 other countries with which the UK has signed an agreement. In return for uprating the state pension, those countries have promised to continue supporting their own citizens living in the UK.
It is right that UK citizens who have diligently paid into the UK national insurance system over many years are entitled to receive their UK state pension, whether or not they decide to move abroad. However, the issue at the forefront of today’s debate is whether pensioners who reside overseas receive annual increases to their pension.
As other hon. Members have set out, this depends on the specific country in which a person lives. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I know it is unfair that some UK pensioners abroad receive state pension increases while others do not, simply because of the country in which they live, not because of the contributions they have made to the UK national insurance system. Addressing that is a matter of fairness and equality, especially for those who have paid into the UK system for their entire working lives.
There has been a long-standing campaign to rectify this discriminatory system. However, the last Conservative Government refused to take any positive steps to increase the number of reciprocal agreements, which would have had the effect of uprating pensions. In fact, it is disappointing—although unsurprising—that under the last Conservative Government, agreements lapsed and the best interests of both British nationals residing overseas and non-British pensioners residing in the UK were neither prioritised nor championed.
We saw catastrophic economic mismanagement under the last Administration, with spiralling inflation rates and a soaring cost of living. That hugely exacerbated the gap in the value of pensions paid to recipients in countries with reciprocal agreements and those paid to recipients in countries without, with a completely unacceptable impact on hundreds of thousands of pensioners.
The majority of pensioners who live overseas receive pension increases because they live in countries with reciprocal agreements. However, many fall through the gaps and are left struggling. Currently, half a million UK pensioners living overseas do not receive the annual state pension increases that those in the UK and in certain other countries are entitled to. This issue affects my constituents and the constituents of many hon. Members. Their pensions are effectively frozen at the rate when they first started claiming—sometimes decades ago. This frequently leaves long-term pensioners abroad significantly worse off over time.
The UK Government have stated that they uprate pensions only in those countries where there is a mutual agreement. Many of those agreements have not been updated or renegotiated for decades, and no new ones have been signed since 1981. Countries such as Australia and Canada have repeatedly requested new agreements, but the UK has declined. Frozen pensions are the norm in countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and parts of the Caribbean and Asia, despite significant British expatriate populations. It is critical that the Government tackle this injustice and take steps to ensure that all pensioners receive the support to which they are entitled. However, it is also critical that this comes alongside a fair deal for the UK taxpayer.
Rather than unilaterally increasing the state pension for UK citizens living abroad, I urge the Government to prioritise entering new arrangements with other countries that would manage costs and provide oversight. That would be more affordable and provide a better framework for monitoring payments. Colombia, Mongolia, Thailand, Uruguay, Brazil, Australia and Canada have all approached the Government in the past decade to ask for a reciprocal agreement, and each time the Government have refused.
We have seen the Government enter new bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations over the last few weeks. As they work to build new trade partnerships with countries across the globe, there is a real opportunity to speak out for thousands of British pensioners who currently face unfair financial hardship. I urge the Minister to ensure that existing agreements are not allowed to lapse. The Liberal Democrats also call for the inclusion of reciprocal pension agreements in future trade deals. More broadly, the Liberal Democrats believe that the Government should conduct an independent review of frozen pension policy, an issue that has been raised with me time and again by constituents.
The previous Conservative Government abandoned pensioners and totally failed to give them proper support. This Labour Government have also treated pensioners poorly by cruelly ripping away the winter fuel payment. The Liberal Democrats are proud to be the ones who introduced the triple lock, lifting thousands of vulnerable pensioners out of poverty.
Sir Roger Gale
It saddens me enormously that the hon. Lady is trying to make a partisan case, simply because—as I recall, and I think I do recall correctly—a member of her party was the Pensions Minister in the coalition, and one of many pensions Ministers who stood by the present policy of refusing to allow these pensions to be paid. The blame lies across the board, not with any one political party.
Sarah Olney
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for his intervention; his memory obviously goes back further than mine on this issue. However, we are dealing with the current situation, and the Minister here today is the person who currently has the power to do something about it. I am merely reflecting on the set of circumstances that led us here.
What I will say is that, in the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the last election, we committed to the triple lock. We remain committed to the triple lock, and I will take further opportunities to ask the current Minister, with the power currently to do something about this issue, to redouble his commitment to it. I will also make the point that, as I am sure the right hon. Member will agree, that this Government are not doing everything they can for pensioners.
The Liberal Democrats are looking to the future, and we want to build a country that is the best place in the world in which to save for and enjoy retirement. We want to give everyone the chance to enjoy a decent retirement, by developing measures to end the gender pension gap in private pensions and to ensure that working-age carers can save properly for retirement. We must also improve the state pension system by investing in helplines to ensure quicker responses to queries and resolution of underpayments, as well as ending the scandal of lost top-up payments by overhauling the processing system and providing proper receipts.
The Liberal Democrats are proud to be the party that champions the rights and protections of pensioners. We will continue to hold the Government to account to ensure that a fair outcome is reached for all pensioners—both those who reside in the UK and those who live abroad.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on securing this important debate, and I thank everybody who is here to take part; it is heartening to see what is, to all intents and purposes, cross-party consensus on this long-term issue, and I am grateful to be able to speak about it today.
It is worth reminding everyone in the Chamber that, as we have heard, this is a full cross-party challenge that we have faced over the last decades and that, as we have also heard, successive Governments, be they Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat, have not grappled with it enough. I am grateful that that point has been raised, because I do not think it would be honest of us to reflect on it in the way that had been done previously.
We have a duty of care to pensioners at home and abroad, and I believe we are all in agreement about that today. However, we have heard much about inconsistencies in how support is delivered and about the ultimate postcode lottery; we speak of postcode lotteries a lot in this place, but this one perhaps wins the prize for being the ultimate postcode lottery. The arguments have been well rehearsed.
The two strongest criticisms of the existing overseas pension system are, first, that most pensioners do not realise that the frozen pension policy exists—perhaps before emigrating to live with their family, as we have heard—and, secondly, that not all British pensioners overseas are impacted by the policy because of reciprocal arrangements, as a result of which, there is a very unequal playing field. Like many here today, until an elector emailed me when I was a candidate in the election, I was not fully aware of this situation.
A large number of overseas pensioners are covered by reciprocal arrangements, which enables us to treat overseas pensioners moving to the UK comparably with UK citizens living abroad. In total, about 60% of overseas pensioners are covered by reciprocal arrangements, which, where possible, is of course the preferred option for pensioners.
However, we have heard some harrowing cases, and Anne Puckridge has certainly got her mentions this morning. That 99-year-old veteran of world war two has lived in Canada since 2001 and is still receiving the £72.50 a week that she has received for 24 years. With 442,000 people receiving a frozen state pension overseas, and often receiving as little as £65 a week or indeed less, the real-life impact of this approach is considerable.
In my South West Devon constituency, I have heard from Denise Bateman, formerly of Ivybridge and now residing in Australia; Gillian Clarke, another Australian resident, who at the age of 87 has seen no increase in her state pension in 27 years; Stephen Mumby, also a resident in Australia; Clive Gray; and Deborah Matthews and Laurie Morbey, who have both raised this issue with me. They are predominantly resident in Australia, but there are also examples in New Zealand and Canada.
As their correspondence highlights, those people could have moved to Turkey or the Philippines, and they would be receiving an unfrozen pension. Yet, they have moved to Commonwealth countries and, despite having worked for many years and contributed to life in the UK, are now faced with a limited pension. Anecdotally, those I have heard from in Australia lived and worked here for far longer than some of those now living in Europe. Indeed, some good friends of mine are retired and have lived in Europe since before I was born, yet they still qualify for the state pension and receive the full pension, having not even worked here in the last 50 years.
As with anything of this nature, the Government need to make sure they properly communicate pension terms to people well ahead of the time they expect receive a state pension. We have seen in the WASPI women campaign the issues that can be caused, and I believe that no one wants to replicate that. British citizens need to know the implication of any move abroad so that they can plan. That is the fairest thing to do, and perhaps work could be done—for example, with well-known employers or organisations in countries that generally support emigration—to help improve the information flows on this topic, in addition to the work that the Department for Work and Pensions and others are already doing.
In 2020, the cost of uprating frozen pensions to 2020 levels was estimated to be around £600 million, and the cost of uprating to today’s levels would be significantly higher. However, as we heard, the End Frozen Pensions campaign has suggested that people do not want the backdating and are happy to see their pension uprated from this point in time, which would cost £55 million. It is worth reflecting that Ministers appear to be having to hunt for cash down the back of the sofa, and I appreciate that the Chancellor has to make the sums add up. That said, the End Frozen Pensions campaign has clearly highlighted that overseas pensioners are in effect net savers for the UK—there is no burden on the welfare system or the NHS—meaning an aggregated saving of around £2,500 per person, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted.
As we have heard, the current system of reciprocal agreements ensures there are protections on both sides for countries in the EU or the EEA, and I am happy to support that long-standing and right approach. However, in the light of the new voting rights, which we have also heard about, this is perhaps the right time for the Government to start exploring conversations on further reciprocal arrangements, especially with Commonwealth friends such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia—countries to which my own constituents have moved. We have heard about the diplomatic awkwardness that this issue causes, which should also prompt such conversations.
The Liberal Democrats mentioned the challenges around pensioners and pensions, and we understand the difficult situations caused by the lack of compensation for the WASPI women, the cruel cut to the winter fuel allowance and the fact that the Government pledged to reduce energy bills by £300 without mentioning that we may all have to wait until 2030 for that to be delivered. Pensioners up and down the country are understandably losing confidence in this Labour Government and in the Prime Minister.
We have talked about the 442,000 people receiving a frozen state pension, but what will the Government do about the 10 million pensioners here in the UK who have had their winter fuel allowance removed? I was surprised to hear that an additional 100,000 pensioners accessed A&E departments last winter, compared to the winter before, which is a direct consequence of Labour’s policy to literally leave pensioners out in the cold.
It really does not matter what dedicated campaigners say in this debate, because we all know that when it comes to issues facing pensioners, we could argue that the Government have their fingers in their ears. However, today is a chance to break the cycle, and for this new Government to be the one that makes this change. It sounds as though there would be enormous support in the Chamber if they chose to pursue that.
We need to push for more action to deliver reciprocal agreements, if possible, with allies such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where the overwhelming majority of those with frozen pensions currently reside. That should help to provide more security for all those still affected. None of the Front Benchers here has been a Minister before, so we get the privilege of being a fresh pair of eyes, while recognising the lack of action in the past, whether that be under the Lib Dems, Labour or Conservatives, as we have discussed many times. I understand the Minister’s previous expert experience in this field, and he might have a few ideas of his own, which I look forward to hearing.
I appreciate the concerns raised by colleagues about specific cases, and I sympathise with those who committed so much to our country in their early lives, only to face challenges unprepared, when they should have been made aware of them. Information is clearly going to be a large part of the solution, and debates such as this go a long way to raise the profile of issues that do not always get the airtime they deserve. Judging by the Minister’s nods during the debate, I believe that he agrees, and I know from other things he is doing that information is top of his agenda. I hope we will see some commitment to that this morning.
Finally, I plead with the Minister to get the tone right this time. As discussions take place, will he please not treat these pensioners like the WASPI women and those affected by winter fuel payments? He should be honest in the debate, think clearly about the cost and provide constructive solutions that can help reduce the number of pensioners in this position in five, 10, 15 or even 30 years’ time.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for opening today’s debate, which was granted by Backbench Business Committee, and for setting the scene so well, in a way that others then followed.
I thank all hon. Members who made the time to speak and set out their cases. They covered issues that are important to many state pension recipients living abroad. I recognise that those who are affected, who obviously cannot speak today, feel strongly about this issue; many of us, in their shoes, would feel the same. On that basis alone, it is right to debate this subject and to hear from hon. Members about their constituents, including my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister), the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and others who are not in Scotland.
Late last year, my predecessor, now the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, met Anne Puckridge and others from the End Frozen Pensions campaign to discuss the policy’s impact. We have listened, and I read case studies every week, either from hon. Members who have written in about them or in letters directly from pensioners themselves. We are all aware that there are many countries where high inflation has posed particular challenges in recent years, so I recognise the salience of today’s subject matter.
We all recognise the importance of the state pension, as the UK’s foundation of support for older people. In 2025-26, the Government will spend over £174 billion on benefits for pensioners. That represents 5.8% of the UK’s GDP and includes £145 billion spent on the UK state pension, including for those living abroad. I raise those facts because they are important; they sit behind the debates that we often have here or in the main Chamber about the size of the state and the level of taxation.
As hon. Members are very aware, the state pension is uprated abroad only when there is a legal basis for doing so, which is why we are here today.
Kirsty Blackman
On that, the state pension is uprated abroad only when there is a legal requirement to do so. There is no legal bar to the UK uprating those pensions in countries where there is not a reciprocal agreement in place.
Torsten Bell
There must be a legal basis for making payments. However, the hon. Member is right to say that under the specific policy I am setting out, payments are made only when there is a legal requirement to do so. As the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon set out right at the beginning, that is a long-standing policy that has lasted for 70 years. For many years, the priority for successive Governments of all parties has been to prioritise those living in the UK when making difficult spending decisions on pensioner benefits. That was true of the coalition Government, when a Lib Dem Pensions Minister chose for five years not to make any progress on this issue. He did that under a Conservative Government and a Conservative Prime Minister all the way through.
The hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick)—my constituency neighbour—mentioned Lloyd George, who introduced a state pension with no uprating whatever. The first uprating of the contributory state pension in 1946, under the Attlee Government—again, I am making a point about the cross-party basis of some of these decisions—was not paid to pensioners living abroad. So since the beginning, policy on pension uprating has been consistent.
As we have discussed, people move abroad for many reasons—to be with their family, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) set out, enjoy a particular climate or return to their country of birth. It is for individuals, not the Government, to make those decisions, but when they make them, they will of course consider the impact on their finances, alongside a wide range of other factors. As the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) set out, our duty is to ensure that information regarding the effect of living abroad on the state pension entitlement is available. These days, that is on gov.uk, and includes information on where the uprating does and does not occur.
Pensioners who have retired to other countries will obviously take into account the UK state pension position, but they will also look at the wider provision for pensioners in those countries. Many countries will have a means-tested provision that is similar to the UK pension credit. It is true that the real-terms value of some people’s state pension will fall over time, but in most cases, particularly in the countries that have been mentioned today, that will be compensated for by higher means-tested payments when they are living abroad.
It is also important that further advice can be obtained from the International Pension Centre or the Pension Service. The hon. Member for South West Devon asked whether there is more we can do, and I want to be clear that I am always open to new ideas about what more we can do to communicate what happens to the state pension if people choose to retire abroad. More generally, I am happy to meet with any hon. Members who have suggestions in that area.
Jim Shannon
I gave the example—others will have similar examples—of a constituent who had moved to Canada. She phoned the DWP to ascertain her pension obligations and responsibilities, and was assured that her pension would follow her, but quite clearly it did not. The Minister outlined a system whereby it should be able to follow her, but that lady went a stage further—she actually phoned the Department, which told her that it would not matter and she would still receive her pension—and quite clearly it did not.
Torsten Bell
I thank the hon. Member for sharing that story. I have not heard of specific cases like that, and he might like to write to me about it. The position with respect to Canada is clear: somebody can take their state pension with them, but the uprating will not be paid once they are living in Canada. That is what the gov.uk website spells out. However, I am open to talking about individual cases and to hearing suggestions about what more we can do to communicate clearly, because this is an important issue.
Of the 1.1 million state pension recipients overseas, 652,000 live in countries where pensions are uprated. However, I do not want to hide from what that means, because that is why we are here today; as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) said, it means there are more than 400,000 pensioners living in countries where uprating is not paid. By volume, those are in the countries that have been mentioned most today: Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Many hon. Members have spoken eloquently of the impact of living in a country where that uprating is not paid, and I have heard about it myself in correspondence from those affected, as I have said.
That does not mean that we can wish away the real trade-offs that are involved. There would be significant additional costs to be borne by current taxpayers if uprating were extended to everybody living overseas, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North calls for. The cost of increasing all state pensions in payment to current UK levels would be approximately £0.9 billion a year, as has been mentioned. If there were any above-inflation uprating, it would then increase gradually over time.
Torsten Bell
Let me get through the discussion of the costs, and then I will take any interventions on that issue.
I recognise that many campaigners are asking for indexation in future, not for retrospective indexation, although there are obviously disagreements among campaigners about the exact ask to prioritise. However, arguing that we can simply put in place indexation going forward does not escape the need to recognise the real trade-offs involved. The long-term impact would be the same, as the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) explained. In the end, moving to forward-looking indexation would take us to the same increase in spending levels as would immediately lifting people up to the current level of the basic and new state pension. It is the same effect in the long-run, and we owe it to everyone to make financial decisions based on the long-run effects of the policies that we call for.
There are wider considerations about the net financial effects of these decisions. The hon. Member for Strangford and others raised the issue of health expenditure. To get to a wider understanding of the net effects, we have also to take into account where income is taxed and where it is spent. That does not get us away from the underlying point, which is that, focusing narrowly on the question of uprating, the costs are as I have set out.
Sarah Olney
Does the Minister not agree that under a reciprocal arrangement, not only would we uprate the pensions of our citizens who are living in a partner country, but that partner country will then be required to uprate the pensions of their citizens living here, and that would obviously be a benefit to this country, because they will have a greater income that they can spend here? Can the Minister assure me that that particular effect is included in the estimates?
Torsten Bell
I recognise the point that the hon. Member is making. I offer a few reflections on that. Some countries already do provide uprating for their pensioners based in the UK, so some of that is already in place, although it does vary across countries. It is, obviously, always for countries to set in place their own social security system. That is why the Australian system, for example, provides means-testing of the state pension, or elements of means-testing of their state pension. I suspect most people—with the possible exception of the Leader of the Opposition on occasion—do not support means-testing of the state pension.
I come on to the other point made by the hon. Member in the debate, which was to call for new reciprocal arrangements to put in place more widespread uprating. As I have explained, that would require significant tax rises. There is no way around that. The issue she raised would not negate that effect.
It is worth putting ourselves in other’s shoes. Why did the Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister for five years not change the policy on this issue? It was because he recognised the costs involved, and that it would involve tax rises. It is worth us reflecting on why the situation is not as some people would like.
Sir Roger Gale
Does the Minister consider that it is morally acceptable for Canada to uprate the pensions of its citizens in this country and to also bear the cost of this country not uprating its pensions for UK expats in Canada when Canada has formally offered to enter into a reciprocal arrangement? Why is that offer not being accepted?
Torsten Bell
Canada is a close ally of this country. We talk about that a lot in the current climate, for a whole host of reasons, and that is not going to change.
The right hon. Member is correct that Canada has made requests for a formal reciprocal arrangement, but the UK Government’s position—and that, again, of all parties—is that we are not in the business of new reciprocal arrangements with any countries. The only recent agreements have been the roll-over agreements with the EU and the EEA by the previous Conservative Government, but that was to maintain the existing social security arrangements, not to put in place any new reciprocal arrangements over that time.
I fully recognise the case that many hon. and right hon. Members have made today. I see the ongoing campaigning that those Members have put in place and that of many pensioners who are affected, but as I have said, the policy on uprating pensions is a long-standing one. More importantly, changing it involves real costs and trade-offs.
I gently note—very gently, so that I get out of this room safely—that many of the people calling for pensions to be uprated are also calling for reverses to the winter fuel payment policy and compensation for WASPI women, but are not calling for less investment in the NHS or higher taxes. In the current financial climate, there are real choices, and there have been no suggestions in this debate about how any of these policies would be funded.
I fully recognise the issues raised by Members today. I hope that I have explained why that recognition sits alongside the long-standing policy in this area, and I look forward to hearing the closing remarks from the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon.
Gregory Stafford
I think I have 22 minutes; I usually get about 22 seconds to wind up, so this is a luxury, but I will not test your patience, Mr Dowd, by taking the full time.
We have had a very wide-ranging and helpful debate today. I am especially grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) who brings a significant amount of experience from many years on this issue. It was interesting to hear his historical knowledge and, indeed, the potential solutions that he raised.
This is very much about the social contract, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) suggested. People have paid in, so they should expect to receive an equitable and fair playing field, whether they happen to have moved to somewhere in the European Union, the Philippines, Canada or Australia, or they are still living in this country.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted exactly why this is morally unfair—it is by not just the dint of the policy itself, but its impact on people. There are people living on very small incomes who are having to choose between paying their heating bills in those countries and their medicine and food. That is clearly not appropriate, especially as we have discovered many people who have paid into this country not just financially but in terms of the things they have done, for example, serving in the armed forces.
It was interesting to hear from the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) on the Welsh perspective and his interesting idea for a number of MPs for overseas citizens. I am not sure whether that is Lib Dem policy.
Gregory Stafford
It is not; the Lib Dem spokesman is shaking her head, but it is an interesting idea. Before entering Parliament, I have to confess that I had no idea this was an issue. People might say that is because I am so young I would not even had to have thought about it—I can see what you are thinking, Mr Dowd. But it has come up time and again. The case of Anne Puckridge really highlights it, but many other Members have mentioned other people who have been affected. I thank the campaigners on this for highlighting it to me and to others. Without them, this issue would really have died a death.
Even after having understood this issue, I did not fully grasp the nature of the problem. I understood that we did not have reciprocal arrangements, and we were not paying uprating in places such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries, which I did not agree with, but I could just about understand because they are foreign nations. I was contacted yesterday by a representative of the Falkland Islands Government—the Falkland Islands is a British overseas territory, and is essentially Britain in all but name. There are 80 people there in this situation, many of whom have served in the armed forces. It seems bizarre that even for our overseas territories we do not uprate the pension. I reflect on that, and I hope the Minister does.
I was disappointed but not surprised that the Lib Dem spokesman, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), decided to get in some political digs, conveniently forgetting that her party had a Pensions Minister for five years in the coalition Government who did absolutely nothing about it. I think that her comments do her, this campaign and the pensioners no service at all.
In contrast, I thought the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), the Conservative spokesman, were measured and sympathetic. I wanted to correct her on one thing: Anne Puckridge is now 100, and I do not think she would want to be known as that. I suppose it was heartening to the campaign, but disappointing overall that my hon. Friend, like so many of us, has had so many people contacting her about this. She was right; we have a new Government and new Ministers, so we could have a fresh look at this.
I do not lay the blame at the feet of the current Minister, or indeed, the current Government. As I said at the start, this is a multi-generational, cross-party problem for which we all should take some responsibility. However, it is in the current Minister’s hands to fix the problem now. As the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) said, given everything else this Government are doing to pensioners—whether that be personal independence payments, WASPI, winter fuel and so on—this issue could be one where people see they are actually on the side of pensioners.
I am afraid I was a little bit disappointed with the Minister’s speech. I accept there will be a cost to the taxpayer, though I think it is disingenuous to say there is a trade-off between this particular policy and cuts to the NHS. It is a more complex situation, and I get that, but I fear he has been captured—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich said—by the Treasury solicitors. That is unhelpful.
Finally, I go back to the requests I made. Will the Minister agree to meet with the campaigners so that we can go through the cost-benefit analysis and have a discussion about whether his figures or the campaigners’ figures are accurate? Will he at least commit to looking at some of the reciprocal pensions arrangements that we have with some of the countries that have been mentioned today, including Canada? Will he commit to doing everything in his power to make sure that first, people understand this policy and where they can and cannot get their pensions uprated? Even if he cannot commit today to sorting this out, will he commit to it still being on his radar going forward? If he has the opportunity —if finances allow—will he look to remove this policy so that every person, wherever they live, gets the pension they deserve?
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered pensions for people living overseas.