Expats angry at lack of Tory support over pensions By Ava Hubble in Sydney
Daily Telegraph (Filed: 09/03/2005)
British expatriates fighting for an end to the Governmant's refusal to unfreeze state pensions are angry that a parliamentary move to scrap the policy has failed to win the support of the shadow welfare minister, Paul Goodman.
Mr Goodman, Conservative MP for Wycombe and former shadow minister for work and pensions, has refused to support an Early Day Motion (EDM) calling for the end of the frozen pensions policy, which penalises expats who retire to
48 mainly Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations.Their pensions are frozen at the UK rate in force on the date they begin to draw them overseas. Those who retire to EU nations, the USA and most other non-Commonwealth nations receive the same regular cost-of-living rises as pensioners resident in the UK.
An EDM is used to draw attention to an issue and elicit the support of other MPs. Nick Harvey, Liberal Democrat MP for North Devon, recently initiated EDM 529, advocating parity for the 480,000 expatriates currently affected. It has been signed by 74 MPs but has not yet been tabled.
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Mr Goodman was asked to support the motion by a member of the British Australian Pensioners' Association, Peter Morris, who has challenged Government claims that Britain cannot afford to grant parity to the penalised expats.
Mr Morris argued that since the National Insurance Fund has a surplus of £20 billion in excess of forecast claims, it can afford the estimated annual £400 million cost of unfreezing affected pensions.
In response Mr Goodman said that while he believes the frozen pensioners have a good case, he will not be supporting EDM 529: it was not Conservative Party policy to do so. He also noted that the National Insurance Fund's surplus might be required for the relief of British workers who have lost their expected occupational pensions.
Mr Goodman said that some of his own constituents "have effectively been robbed of their (occupational) pensions" because of the purchase and later controversial closure of the Glory Paper Mill near High Wycombe by the German firm, Felix Schoeller.
Mr Goodman's response has outraged the Adelaide-based British Australian Pensioners' Association (BAPA). "So now we are told the National Insurance Fund could be raided to prop up private pension funds left short by employers," James Nelson, BAPA committee member, complained last week.
He pointed out that hundreds of thousands of expatriate retirees, including Second World War veterans, who contributed to the NI fund throughout long post-war working lives, are now living in straitened circumstances because of the frozen pensions policy.
"We've been fighting for years for parity," he protested. "Now we're told people who contracted out may be deemed to have a superior claim to its resources."
He also referred to a trip to Pakistan taken by Mr Goodman, after which he said that he wanted to get to know the place where 10 per cent of his constituents came from. Mr Nelson pointed out that Pakistan is one country affected by the frozen pensions policy.
"In other words, if after spending their working lives in the UK, some of Mr Goodman's constituents decide to retire to their homeland, they too will be penalised by the policy," he said. "Yet Mr Goodman says he won't sign EDM
529."Last week, five Law Lords in London reserved judgment on an appeal against the Government's frozen pensions policy by Annette Carson, a Briton living in South Africa. She lost her case in the High Court and in the Appeal Court but won the right to a Lords appeal.
The Adelaide-based BAPA, as well as the Sydney-based British Pensioners in Australia organisation, are among the expat pensioner groups which have been urging their eligible members to register to vote in the forthcoming UK General Election. Eligible expats and supporters have also been encouraged to contact their MPs to ask them to support the Early Day Motion.