State Retirement Pensions: British Nationals Abroad

(asked on 17th July 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of uprating the state pension, for UK pensioners residing overseas, in line with the state pension in the UK; and if she will make a statement.


Answered by
Guy Opperman Portrait
Guy Opperman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 23rd July 2018

The cost of up-rating State Pensions overseas where they are not currently up-rated would be over £0.5 billion per year if all pensions in payment were increased to current UK levels. These costs would increase in future years. The policy on up-rating state pensions overseas is a long-standing one. It has been the policy of successive post-war Governments for around 70 years - UK State Pensions are payable worldwide and are uprated abroad where there is a legal requirement to do so, for example in the European Economic Area (EEA) and in countries with which we have a reciprocal agreement that provides for up-rating. We have no plans to change this policy.

The Department regularly receives representations from Commonwealth countries on the up-rating of UK State Pension for pensioners residing in those countries.

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