Simon Read: 'The fight must go on over equality on expat pensions'
Derrick Prance died in Australia, having failed in a long-running campaign to get justice for overseas British pensioners
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Your support makes all the difference.The funeral of Derrick Prance was held on Thursday. The 89-year-old former war veteran died from cancer in Perth, Australia, where he had moved with his wife Ivy in 1997. He died having failed in a long-running campaign to get justice for overseas British pensioners.
When the couple emigrated, they knew of the UK's longstanding policy of not granting annual state pension increases to Britons who retire to Australia and other countries. It's a historical anomaly that leaves around 500,000 retired Brits worse off than half a million others who do benefit from the annual state pension increase – even though they have moved abroad too.
But soon after Derrick settled in Western Australia, he discovered that not only would his basic British pension be frozen at the 1997 rate but also his two British government "optional extra" pensions.
Struck by the unfairness of this, he joined the Australia-based British Age Pensioner Alliance and began lobbying to get the freeze scrapped. He became heavily involved in a decade-long legal case that eventually ended up at the European Court of Human Rights.
Although the court upheld the legality of the freezing of the basic British pension, there was no ruling on whether it was legal to freeze the British Government's "optional extras", so Derrick continued the fight.
He sought the reopening of a long-adjourned tribunal hearing into his claim that the Department for Work and Pensions had no legal right to freeze these optional pensions, which he said were sold to him as the equivalent of private schemes. But he was knocked back on several occasions.
He persisted, convinced of the justice of his case. However, there was a growing perception that the authorities were trying to wear him down by referring him to another ombudsperson or requesting another form or a referral from a politician.
I hope that his stand will not be forgotten and that it may help remind British politicians – and hopeful MPs – of the injustice of the frozen pensions policy. It remains a nonsense that if you retire to the wrong country – mainly those which were formerly part of the British Commonwealth – you won't get the full state pension.
With the general election coming closer, family and friends of those affected by the injustice are likely to use their vote as a protest against the continuing injustice. Prospective MPs should bear that in mind.
s.read@independent.co.uk
twitter: @simonnread
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