[BITList] 'Please Your Majesty, back us over frozen pensions' - Telegraph

[John Feltham]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/campaigns/frozenpensions/10304967/Please-Your-Majesty-back-us-over-frozen-pensions.html

'Please Your Majesty, back us over frozen pensions'


British expats have called on the Queen to suspend the UK from the Commonwealth until their frozen pensions are unlocked.

The International Consortium of British Pensioners believes such a measure could force the UK to rethink its long-standing policy on the matter.

This week, the consortium – which has branches in Canada and Australia – appealed to the Queen, who is head of the Commonwealth, for her support.

In a letter to the monarch, Sheila Telford, chairman of the International Consortium of British Pensioners, wrote: “On March 11 this year, when you signed the historic Charter of the Commonwealth, we applauded the values espoused of inclusiveness and the ‘implacable opposition to all forms of discrimination’.

"Yet, the British Government refuses to address the policy of continued discrimination by freezing the pensions of over half a million UK pensioners, almost all of whom are resident in the British Commonwealth, who are treated as second class citizens.

"Another 650,000 non-resident British pensioners, most of whom live outside the Commonwealth, receive fully indexed pensions as if they still lived in the United Kingdom. This is unfair, unjust and immoral."

The pensioners affected do not receive the annual UK pension increase as their payments are frozen at the UK rate that was in force when they moved overseas. In some cases, that was decades ago.

Telford said that 95 per cent of those with frozen pensions live in the Commonwealth, and she claimed that thousands are living in poverty as a result.

"A pensioner retiring to Canada today, on a full pension, would receive a basic pension of £110.15, whereas a person in identical circumstances, but 90 years of age instead of 65, receives only £41.15, exactly the same as 25 years ago,” she complained.

Telford concluded her letter by writing: “We respectfully request that your Majesty instructs your representative at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka in November to support a motion calling for the suspension of the United Kingdom from the Commonwealth.

“The United Kingdom, which discriminates against its own pensioners in persistent violation of the Charter of the Commonwealth, has no place in the Commonwealth.”

Telford sent similar letters to Prince Charles and Karmalesh Sharma, the Commonwealth Secretary General.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said today: "We do not comment on correspondence. Pension policy would be a matter for the Government."

The Commonwealth Secretariat has yet to respond to a request for comment.




ooroo

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