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Thirteen British pensioners who live abroad have lost the discrimination case they brought against the Department of Work and Pensions in the European Court of Human Rights.
This is the end of a long-running legal challenge that was effectively brought on behalf of half a million expatriate Britons whose UK pensions were frozen as of the dates they relocated. The judges in Strasbourg ruled that the British government’s refusal to update their pensions each year did not breach their human rights.
Government rules allow for annual increases to pensioners who live in the EU or in a few other countries with reciprocal pension arrangements, but not in 150 other countries such as Australia, Canada and South Africa. The International Consortium of British Pensioners, which supported the thirteen in this case, says that this means, for example, a pensioner who began drawing a full pension in Australia in 1981 will still be receiving £29.60 a week, although the basic UK state pension is now £95.25 a week.
Government ministers are said to concede that the existing rules are illogical but stubbornly refuse to make any concession to the expatriate pensioners affected. There seems no logical reason why pensioners living outside the EU who have been contributing to their pensions over their working lives like everyone else should not enjoy the same benefits as others.
I suspect the government’s position relates more to the cost of providing uptodate pensions to the estimated half a million people involved, rather than anything else. And, in the present economic climate, I can’t see any government altering their position.
Their position is morally wrong but, alas, there is no court in the world that will decide a case on its morality.
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Thirteen British pensioners who live abroad have lost the discrimination case they brought against the Department of Work and Pensions in the European Court of Human Rights.
This is the end of a long-running legal challenge that was effectively brought on behalf of half a million expatriate Britons whose UK pensions were frozen as of the dates they relocated. The judges in Strasbourg ruled that the British government’s refusal to update their pensions each year did not breach their human rights.
Government rules allow for annual increases to pensioners who live in the EU or in a few other countries with reciprocal pension arrangements, but not in 150 other countries such as Australia, Canada and South Africa. The International Consortium of British Pensioners, which supported the thirteen in this case, says that this means, for example, a pensioner who began drawing a full pension in Australia in 1981 will still be receiving £29.60 a week, although the basic UK state pension is now £95.25 a week.
Government ministers are said to concede that the existing rules are illogical but stubbornly refuse to make any concession to the expatriate pensioners affected. There seems no logical reason why pensioners living outside the EU who have been contributing to their pensions over their working lives like everyone else should not enjoy the same benefits as others.
I suspect the government’s position relates more to the cost of providing uptodate pensions to the estimated half a million people involved, rather than anything else. And, in the present economic climate, I can’t see any government altering their position.
Their position is morally wrong but, alas, there is no court in the world that will decide a case on its morality.
.
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