Pensions: Expatriates

Neil Duncan-Jordan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[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.

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[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.