Pensions: British Pensioners Overseas Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Lord Rooker
Main Page: Lord Rooker (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Rooker's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Freud
This is the reason why this is a complicated area: it is about a bilateral agreement with another country. In practice, to take the example of Australia, I estimate that for any extra amount that we paid to ex-UK pensioners or UK pensioners living in Australia, more than 25% of that money would go straight into the Australian Treasury.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, I fully accept the position that the Minister is in by answering this Question, but how often do the Government check and audit that the recipients of these pensions who are thousands of miles away are still alive?
Lord Freud
The noble Lord will be very pleased to know that we now have a system, which has been introduced reasonably recently, of checking that rather more regularly than it used to be done.