The UK government has set up a working group that includes Treasury officials and members of International Consortium of British Pensioners (ICBP), to investigate the issue of frozen state pensions, which affects 500,000 British pensioners living in 120 countries, including Thailand and most of the Commonwealth.
Their state pension entitlement was frozen at the level it stood at when they left the country, which for some is as much as 40 years ago.
John Markham, UK director of the ICBP, said, “The setting up of the working group shows that the government is taking the issue of frozen pensions seriously.”
A motion (EDM) calling on the government to end the freeze, sponsored by Work and Pensions Committee chair Dame Anne Begg, has attracted 101 MP signatures.
The ICBP has also attracted 13,500 signatures on an e-petition calling on the government to unfreeze expat pensions. The petition can be “signed” at pension-parity-uk.com.