Pensions Uprating (UK Pensioners Living Overseas)

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) and the other Members who have spoken in this debate. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends because the fact that so many SNP Members are in the Chamber for this important debate sends out a very positive signal.

Some of us have been speaking about and supporting this campaign for many years. As has been said, parties of all political persuasions have made all the right noises and said positive things when in opposition, but have completely reneged on that when in government, because Governments always tend to renege when the Treasury gets involved. I very much welcome the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) because she reflected the views of the leader of our party, who has been committed to this for many years. I hope that we will now treat this campaign very seriously and be strong supporters of it.

I pay tribute to John Markham, who for many years has continued to push this issue with the International Consortium of British Pensioners, the global coalition of all the various campaign groups. He has kept going, as have all his supporters, when—time after time, setback after setback—they must have felt that they were not really getting anywhere. Following the speeches by Members on both sides of the Chamber, I hope they feel that they are now beginning to see movement. I also welcome the involvement and support of the National Pensioners Convention. All of us who have pensioners groups in our constituencies—this issue is certainly raised regularly in my area—know that pensioners in this country, no matter how difficult their circumstances, believe that the arrangement is unfair and would welcome the resolution of this problem.

I am particularly concerned about the issue because it involves many people from the Afro-Caribbean community in my area. They came to this country to work many years ago and many of them are now getting on and would like to go back. Some islands in the Caribbean are covered and some are not. It is just ludicrous that our Government cannot work out reciprocal agreements even with that small area of the Caribbean—let us forget the big countries for the moment. Those people want to go back home in their old age to retire, but do not feel they can go back knowing that their pension will not increase and that they may well need help from their families and relatives there, when they have been working over here. They want to go back home and to be able to retire with dignity.

To be honest, the Minister did not really say anything other than what he read out from his brief, which probably included everything he said the last time he spoke. I do not understand why we cannot get a reciprocal agreement with Australia, Canada and New Zealand. When he winds up, will he actually tell us why we cannot get such an agreement? Have the Government tried to do so? When did they last discuss it? What are the obstacles to it? Those three countries are among the countries closest to this country. They are part of the Commonwealth, and many of their citizens died for us during the first and second world wars. Why can we not get a reciprocal agreement with those three countries, and why can we not get one with the whole of the Caribbean?

Reciprocal agreements are only one way of solving this problem. The best way would obviously be to restore fairness by saying that this is the pensioners’ money, not the Government’s—the money is due to pensioners and should have gone to them. At some stage, a Government will have to accept that enough is enough and that we really must take this bold step. I hope that the suggestions made in this very good paper, “Frozen British Pensions: The Case for Change”, which has a lot in it, can be taken up. If we could at least have a partial uprating, that would be a start.

This is a question of justice and fairness, not of cost. We know that the cost for many of the people who would like to move abroad, go back home or retire to be with their family would be made up through savings over the years. There will be savings—there is no doubt about that—and it will also cost us much more if, as has been said, many people came back to this country just when they will need more support from the health service and all the other social services. On the cost issue, I understand that this sounds like a huge amount of money, but to me, £30 million—it would at least start to redress the problem by following the suggestion in this document—is not a huge amount of money. I do not want to get involved in the EU thing, but I think we are giving something like £50 million a day to the European Union. In the scale of things, £30 million is actually a very small amount.

I appeal to the Minister and certainly to my hon. Friend on the Front Bench to keep up the pressure on this issue, particularly because I believe that a start has now been made. During the 27 years that I have been in the House, I have never seen so many Members involved in holding debates or asking questions on these matters. Two or three committed Conservative Members have always done a huge amount of work on it, but for the first time a lot of new Members have understood the issue. The system has not been explained to people. There are even people moving now who do not realise what it means, because the website is not clear; there is no clarity. Many people who moved a long time ago had no idea that their pension would not be uprated, so we have not made this very clear.

I thank all Members who have taken part in the debate today. I hope that those watching this debate all over the world, who have felt so let down over the years, will feel that at last—thanks to the efforts of the Members who have secured this debate and have spoken today—there is a chink of light and that this situation may actually begin to change.