An expat who retires abroad currently has their pension on the amount payable on retirement. This is massively unfair for expats who have paid their NI. 

I hope this may change as a pair of MPs are attempting to change the law to ensure that all expat pensioners receive the full state pension.

Currently about a million expat pensioners get no annual increases – instead their state pensions are frozen at the level in force on their retirement date. This has led to some pensioners in their 90s receiving a weekly pension of about £20 a week, compared with £110 a week for their counterparts who still live in Britain.

Sir Roger Gale and Sir Peter Bottomley, two senior Conservative backbenchers, say they will table an amendment to the Pensions Bill currently going through Parliament in an attempt to ensure that all British pensioners living abroad receive index-linked increases in their state pension every year.

The UK Govt seems to think it can reduce costs by reducing pensions. How can it be equal when a British pensioner aged 90 living in Canada receives one third of the pension of a pensioner living in the UK.  

Let hope the rules are made fair for all and most importantly the government stop seeing pensions as an easy way to increase revenue or reduce costs.

Nigel Green deVere group

Blog written 5th September