“Bringing together parliamentary supporters of the case to unfreeze British state pensions overseas and to campaign for reform.”
Sir Roger Gale, Chair of the APPG, recently said:
“our party must honour its commitments on frozen pensions“
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Frozen British Pensions exists to bring together parliamentary supporters of the case to unfreeze frozen British State Pensions Overseas and to campaign for reform on this issue.
They are supporting the 544,000 British pensioners, which is currently half the pensioners living overseas, who are adversely affected by the government’s frozen pension policy. Brexit may increase this by another 476,000 which, according to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is the number of British pensioners living in the EEA.
Unlike pensioners in the UK, and many others living overseas, frozen pensioners do not receive any annual uprating adjustments to their State Pensions, resulting in pension payments of declining real terms value throughout their retirement. This leaves some facing poverty in old age.
More than 95% of the current “frozen” pensioners live in Commonwealth countries, mostly in Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand, but also India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, many Caribbean islands and all African countries.
As an APPG they are championing the affordable and deliverable policy solutions to this injustice. They have members from every political party in Westminster, united by this common cause, across both Houses.
They recently held their Annual General Meeting in which they invited leaders from the British Overseas Territories (BOT) to attend.