Uprating Pensions – Reciprocal Agreements

The letter below was sent to Baroness Amos by F Richard Corner, on behalf of the World Alliance of British Expatriate Pensioners, on 27 January 2001 in response to her presentation of Government policy in the House of Lords five days earlier.

The Rt Hon The Baroness Amos
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
United Kingdom

Dear Lady Amos,

We appreciate that you are compelled to abide by Government policy and that your answers in the House on 22 January 2001 were couched accordingly but we do ask you to consider whether they reflect a caring society based, among other things, upon a sense of fair play. There appears to be a gap between the generation that fought for such things of value and those who now benefit by the resultant freedom.

We beg to take issue with your defence of that policy.

I suspect the 1983 European Commission of Human Rights judgement to which you referred was in fact its Decision in respect of Application No. 11271/84 by Frederick Richard Corner (the writer) against the United Kingdom.

That Decision relied in part upon technicalities and failure of the British Government to ratify certain Protocol but fundamentally upon the Government's view at that time that reciprocal agreements were an essential prerequisite to uprating pensions outside the United Kingdom.

Subsequently, in 1988, the then Minister of State agreed with me "that reciprocal agreements are NOT necessary to pay pensions to all beneficiaries living abroad at the same rates as those paid in the United Kingdom". It is not unreasonable to anticipate that the Commission will revise its Decision when given the opportunity by way of the proposed appeal. You claim to have no alternative but "to abide by the 1983 judgement". Hopefully the Government of the day will be as assiduous in respect of an ECHR Court revision thereof.

Incidentally, with the advent of the Human Rights Act in Britain, it could be argued that the need to ratify Protocols falls away.

Government policy is seriously flawed in that none of the criteria used in support of the freezing of pensions is applied universally. None prevents uprating in some countries overseas. The issue is discrimination. A sense of shame, notably lacking on the Government side of the House in this debate, would suffice to promote redress in civilised society. Nothing more need be said except to dispel myths employed by Government.

Constant harping by the Government upon priority given to pensioners living in the United Kingdom is blatant politics and does nothing to improve the image of New Labour among the discerning. It is also self-deceiving. Overseas votes have gained seats in the past and present trends indicate an increase in numbers of this electorate.

It is disingenuous and less than honest to select but one side of the coin. Of those who spent some of their working life overseas, there were those who worked for British international firms/agencies that contributed through repatriated profits and otherwise to the British Exchequer. You mentioned only that they contributed to the economies of host countries.

If, as Minister Jeff Rooker on Radio 4 recently reminded us, the Rules have not changed then you must agree that the pay-as-you-go system applied when pensioners were taxpayers. It did. The fiction, so much a favourite of the Lord Marsh, does not exist in the minds of campaigners. The anger does.

We have pointed out time and again that pensioners accepted during their working lives as reasonable the need to fund pension increases. So we ask with good reason how you and others in Government can logically justify your view that the cost would be an unfair burden upon today's taxpayers.

Indeed it is perhaps this uneven attitude which angers aggrieved pensioners almost as much as the shameful discrimination itself. Another example is Government's persistent refusal to ignore the huge savings to the Exchequer of the cost of multifarious social security and medical benefits enjoyed by pensioners in the United Kingdom. It is next to impossible to quote a figure but it has been variously put at two to three times the cost of upgrading pensions worldwide. In all conscience when the Government invokes the cost argument it should also mention these savings.

Yours sincerely,

F. Richard Corner
Secretary-General,
World Alliance of British Expatriate Pensioners
P O Box 66, Wilderness, 6560 South Africa.
Tel/fax: +27 (0)44 877 0717
Website: http://wabep0.tripod.com/

Copies to:

Lord Clarke of Hampstead
Lord Shore of Stepney
Lord Goodhart
Lord Higgins
Lord Marsh